Knight's Cross Panzers: The German 35th Tank Regiment in World War II Book

There are certain faults with the Carius memoir (I read the 2003 1st Edition Stackpole Series). It tends to be dry at times, says nothing about any possible war crimes committed by the German Front, and generally gives a rather selective view of the battlefield.

But as a historical source? This memoir is highly valuable. Not many German panzer commanders wrote their memoirs. There is Hans von Luck and Friedrich von Mellenthin... but that's pretty much it, and both of them were rather higher ranking officers. Carius's memoir gives people insight into the fighting on the Eastern Front from the point of view of a lower ranking officer who wasn't socialized in the German officer core. Moreover, the omission and bias that Carius's memoir has, actually turns out to be pretty valuable in discerning the German reaction to defeat in 1945.

The memoir is also a good read in and by of itself. Carius... or at least from what I can glean from the English translation, is rather charismatic and one can see why he rose through the ranks to command his company. He is strongly opinionated about the service of the German front soldier, but at the same time he's rather self-effacing, modest, and matter-of-fact about his role in the company. These aspects of his personality make the memoir vary from matter-of-fact deliveries on battles and specifications of the Tiger and Jagtiger, to sarcastic and witty comments about his superiors and the situation at hand, to respectful references to the service of his comrades, and then to strong ideologues about his opinions.

All in all, the memoir is not only a good look into ground-level tank combat operations on the Eastern Front, it is an excellent and rather entertaining look into the military service of a charismatic officer in the German Army. While it has biases and a certain perspective, these can prove to be highly valuable to any historian studying military history.