Tigers in the Mud: The Combat Career of German Panzer Commander Otto Carius

If one were to remove the identities of the nations at war and whether the troops were German, American, Russian, or other--in short, take out the political aspects--this account could be any warrior's story. It reads very much like the personal accounts of American and British soldiers. Politics and the rest are in the background. Instead, there is duty, defense of the nation and, at the very core, support for one's comrades in battle and fear of letting them down. In fact, the book itself was meant to support his comrades after the war.For me there were a number of interesting small details. I did not know that the turret on a Tiger tank was controlled by a pedal that rotated the turret in one direction when pressed forward and the opposite when pressed back and, either way, at varying speeds so the turret and cannon could be rotated quickly at first and then slowed to almost clock-like precision to stop on the target, requiring very little if any adjustment before firing. I didn't know the interiors were painted white. I had not appreciated how dangerously cold the interior of the tank became in bad weather. A number of small but interesting details emerge almost by accident from this account.The capabilities of the Tiger were interesting as well. The conventional, and probably correct, wisdom of the war is that the Soviet T-34 was the best tank on the field. Yet, time and again, this author and the tanks he directs fight and win in battles against superior numbers of T-34 tanks. I suspect that general tactics played a role. He notes that the Soviets drove fully buttoned up and with limited visibility whereas the German tank commander kept his head just enough out of the turret so he could quickly see in every direction. Seeing first means shooting first and he took out many Soviet tanks before they even realized they were in a battle. Carius is also a very smart and careful man and that helped him when staging for a battle.He personally met Himmler when he was awarded a very high decoration and the description of the meeting is surprising. He was surprised as well. First, when he went to meet Himmler [after the attempted assassination of Hitler] his credentials were barely examined and he was allowed a private interview with Himmler while wearing his service pistol. Himmler, himself, was gracious, willing to listen, sophisticated and gentlemanly. This is not to say that Himmler was not a monster [Carius doesn't say] because he was. But apparently even monsters can present themselves as highly civilized and considerate. There must be a warning there.Carius is harsh in his remarks about American soldiers whom he confronted near the end of the war. He did not think them very good soldiers. But, he met them when Germany was collapsing and they were practically strolling into occupation of the country at a time when nobody wanted to be the last person killed in the war. He somehow forgot that he was facing these poor soldiers in Germany rather than in America and that they got there somehow. Hitler and his very capable Wehmacht wanted to cross the Channel and invade Britain [Operation Sea Lion], but never could quite put it together or get their feet wet. The poor American soldiers and their British and Canadian allies did cross the Channel and pushed the Germans all the way into their own country and to absolute defeat. Perhaps they were not as poor as he wanted to believe.Part of his opinion of the Americans was formed because he thought German prisoners were treated harshly. Yeah, so what? They were finally released alive. Few Americans were feeling charitable to Germans after they liberated the Dachau concentration camp. Carius' complaints on this score do not move me. I favor the attitude of 'Bomber' Harris who commanded the British bomber service. An old black and white clip shows him sitting behind his desk and saying in a rather high voice something like, "The Germans came into this war thinking they were going to bomb everyone else and nobody was going to bomb them . . . ." Bomber Harris, and the American Eighth Air Force showed them how mistaken they were. Good for them.By comparison with the American treatment of prisoners, there were about 300,000 German soldiers in Stalingrad and the old movies of them being marched across vast plains of snow and ice after their surrender is disturbing since of all of them only about 6,000 returned. It scarcely needs mentioning that the Germans were often brutal to their prisoners, particularly those captured on the Eastern Front. Carius was very luck to be captured by Americans.It is worth mentioning that while the Soviet T-34 tank was in some ways superior to the Tiger, the American Sherman tank was inferior in most respects to the tanks of every other combatant. It had a dangerously high profile that made it look as if it were made for a much earlier and more primitive war. It mounted a puny cannon that usually could not penetrate the armor of a Tiger while a Tiger could easily take out a Sherman. The one way in which the Sherman was superior was in repairs. It did not require nearly as frequent mechanical repairs as the Tiger which was notorious for breakdowns. Omar Bradley and Gen. Eisenhower were both aware of the Sherman's limitations, but you fight your war with what you have rather than what you want. Bradley said that it often took 3 Sherman tanks swarming a single Tiger to take it out and that was often with the loss of two of the Shermans and their crews. Despite the odds, the Americans still went up against the Tigers and ultimately prevailed. Well worth reading is Omar Bradley's take on the war,  Soldier's Story .

This book reads more like a daily diary. It seems to provide a realistic view of life on the Russian Front - difficult and disorganized. Carius seems to value those who do their job and serve.

"Tigers in the Mud", by Otto Carius, are his memoirs of fighting as a German Panzertrooper in World War II. Mr. Carius, still alive at the time of this review, was drafted in 1940 and fought through the rest of the war in the Panzer 38(t), Tiger, and Jagdtiger armored fighting vehicles (the first two were tanks, while the last was an armored tank destroyer).The author covers the first three years of his war in just 25 pages, covering the time from his induction into the German army through his time in the Panzer 38(t) in Operation Barbarossa, the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union. I wish he would have spent more time covering this time frame, from his training, to more detail on the tank itself, and about the battles he fought in. While he was drafted as an enlisted man and failed the Officer Training School he was sent to, perhaps being too much of a free thinker, he eventually received a battlefield commission and rose to the rank of Oberleutnant (First Lieutenant).The meat of the book begins in early 1943, when Mr Carius converts into a Tiger tank and is sent to Army Group north on the Leningrad front. From then until July 1944, when he is severely wounded while reconnoitering without his tank, he gives wonderfully detailed descriptions about fighting in a Tiger, relationships with superiors and subordinates, and many of the battles he fought in, primarily as a tank platoon commander.After recovering from his wounds, he was posted to command a Jagdtiger company in early 1945, fought briefly in the battle for the Ruhr, and surrendered to the Americans in April 1945. Unfortunately, he does not give many details about the Jagdtiger itself, which was a very rare and extremely powerful tank-destroyer (although not without serious flaws and limitations). He ends his narrative describing his time in captivity (he did not think that Americans treated the captured soldiers well), and his views and thoughts after the war.The book includes many appendixes, including some interesting after action reports, and many, many pages of photocopies of the author's awards and decorations (along with an English translation of the same). While I initially thought that these latter pages were overkill, as they include pretty much every decoration Mr Carius received, I've thought about it changed my mind. These pages both lets those who are interested in German awards see what the different type of certificates looked like, and also show what a truly decorated veteran Mr. Carius is. (When it was awarded, he was the youngest person to ever receive the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, and he had an "interesting" conversation with Heinrich Himmler when receiving the award.)Although I liked the book a lot, as noted above, I would have liked more detail about the earlier and latter parts of his service. I also thought the book a bit disjointed at times, although I don't know if that is the author's or translator/editor's fault. Overall, I give the book 4 stars, and recommend it to anyone with an interest in combat in a Tiger Tank on the eastern front.

This book was a good insight into the battles faught on the losing side of the war. Was interesting to know how they fared and the construction of the tanks -- right or wrong.

Great German perspective. I chose the rating because I couldn't stop reading. Anybody who likes Anthony Beviour would like this.

I thought it sounded as a good account on the author's experiences during the war and therefore a good read.

I found this one a bit too light on details for me, and a touch too political.

Great book. Highly recommend.