The Last Panther by Wolfgang Faust

[Jeeperz83]

Let me start by saying I'm not fully through the book yet, but should be by tonight. So far it seems an incredible tale of the struggle to break out of the Halbe pocket as witnessed by a Panzer driver turned Panther commander in April 1945. The book is almost too "Hollywood", and reads like an an action novel I can hardly put down. And therein lies my problem. I find myself wondering how much is actual wartime truth rather than post-war creative writing embellishment. The book is sold as a memoir and apparently the author's second, the first being about his driver experience in Tiger I's earlier on the Ostfront.

Would be interested in knowing if anyone else has read this and what they thought of it.

[Mark Stevens]

I have read both books and find them hard to believe.

[FrenchVolunteer]

Hi,

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...be-kessel-1945

Amongst the dozen of "noob reviews", there is this one :

Aug 17, 2015 Themistocles rated it did not like it
Shelves: world-war-ii, history

This book, like the rest by Sprech Media (SS Panzer - SS Voices, The Last Panther, Tiger Tracks, Hitler's Children) is a piece of fiction.

There's just too many details that point to that - from the utter and complete lack of sources or identifiable unit numbers (or ANYthing that could have led to verifications of facts) to technical and historical mistakes (for instance, the IS-3 tank appearing in a 1943 story) it's quite evident that this is not a collection of "eyewitness accounts" but merely a work of a very excitable imagination.

Other, often repeated details give that away - the fact that from what's written 9/10 soldiers killed in WWII were decapitated (really, everything, from a single bullet to a naval shell to a 60-ton tank falling on you scenes are filled with severed heads; heads on the snow, heads on tanks, heads on tree branches, you name it), experiences that the narrator absolutely could not have seen (from a complete overview of a battle through the driver's slit to a -obviously weapon systems expert- civilian at the cellar of her home), sub-stories that read like out of a bad Hollywood script (the beautiful Russian prisoner who travels chained in the tank -like there's room for it there- or nurses exchanging sexual favors for cigarettes) - EVERYTHING about these books point to someone contemporary who has read up quite a bit and then fabricated some rather sick fantasy.

Stay away!

It confirm that all those books are just SS airport novels with a bit of sex in it...

See You

Vince

[DonC]

I really enjoyed both books, but have a hard time believing that they are actual memoirs.

Don