Tiger Tracks

The Classic Panzer Memoir

By: Wolfgang Faust

Narrated by: George Backman

Length: 5 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's Summary

Wolfgang Faust was the driver of a Tiger I tank with the Wehrmacht Heavy Panzer Battalions, seeing extensive combat action on the Eastern Front in 1943-45. This memoir is his brutal and deeply personal account of the Russian Front's appalling carnage.

Depicting a running tank engagement lasting 72 hours, Faust describes how his Tiger unit fought pitched battles in the snows of Western Russia against the full might of the Red Army: the T34s, the Stalin tanks, the Sturmovik bombers, and the feared Katyusha rocket brigades. His astonishing testimony reveals the merciless decisions that panzer crews made in action, the devastating power of their weaponry, and the many ways that men met their deaths in the snow and ice of the Ostfront.

First published in the late 1940s, this memoir's savage realism shocked the postwar German public. Some were outraged at the book's final scenes while others wrote that "now, at last, I know what our men did in the East".

Today it stands as one of the great semiautobiographical accounts of warfare in World War II - a crescendo of horror, grim survival, and a fatalistic acceptance of the panzer man's destiny.

Originally published in the German Federal Republic as Panzerdammerung (Panzer Twilight).

The only other surviving memoir by this author is The Last Panther - an astonishing account of panzer warfare in the final hours of the Third Reich.

©2015 The Estate of Wolfgang Faust; Bayern Classic Publications (P)2016 Audible, Inc.

Realistic I can't verify, but it's a fun read

What is it like to be in a tank on the eastern front during WW2? I am not in the position to say how accurate the book is (the author even addresses this in the preface saying all these people doubting the accuracy of his story are a bunch of civilians) but I can say this book tells an exciting story.

This is NOT a Memoir. This is 100% War Porn.

Would you try another book from Wolfgang Faust and/or George Backman?

So far as I can tell, Wolfgang Faust is not a real person. The name is probably a pseudonym for a ghostwriter, furnished by Sprech Media.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Anger, but not because of the content of the story. I'm mad because I'm fairly certain this is not a memoir, is not historical fact, and is most likely is a fictional story in which none of the people and events are real.

Early on in the book, I noticed that there was no reference to specific divisions, regiments or locations. That's pinged my internal "BS" meter. The author said the story took place in October 1944 and from his description, he faced IS-3 tanks. the IS-3 didn't make an appearance on the battlefield until the last weeks of the war in April 1945. That's pinged my internal "BS" meter some more.

The "author" is a Tiger tank driver that can apparently see every single detail of a battle from his driver position in the Tiger. If you've never seen the driver position of a Tiger, Google it. The vision slit is very small and provides a *very* narrow field of view. In fact, a Tiger driver cannot effectively drive in battle without commands and directions from the tank commander, who has a better view from the command position in the turret, but by no means could the commander be able to provide even a partial description of the battle occurring around the tank as Faust did. The description Faust gives of battles occurring around him are so detailed, it's as if he were either a field grade officer, directing the battle and observing results, or an omnipotent being, floating over the battlefield seeing and experiencing everything. I find it VERY hard to believe that he (if he is even a real person), an enlisted man in the driver seat of a Tiger, saw a tenth of what he described. Maybe he could have seen more of the battlefield if he were driving the tiger with the driver hatch open, but if the battles were as ferocious as he described, that would have been an instant death sentence. Being able to see aircraft dog-fighting during a tank battle? I don't think so. Being able to see and describe the tanks behind your own tank? Impossible. Being able to see the enemy tank crew through their own driver vision slit during a battle? Seriously?!? After listening to such unbelievable battle descriptions three or four times, my "BS" meter was going off the chart. I stopped listening and did some research.

I tried researching the author of "Tiger Tracks", Wolfgang Faust, and found no information whatever about him EXCEPT for information released directly from Sprech Media. According to the book, there's a Faust Estate, but there's no information ANYWHERE ON THE ENTIRE INTERNET about him or his estate. That's suspicious. Apparently, this book was released in 1948 and received heavy criticism. In my research, I cannot find any mention of this book or the controversy that followed it after its release (other than information directly from Sprech Media). Further research turned up multiple internet forums that bring into question the integrity of Sprech Media's releases. There are claims that Sprech Media is releasing a bunch of books that are advertised as memoirs, recollections, and interviews, when in fact they are entirely fiction and the authors are not real (e.g. "World War 2 Through German Eyes," "D Day Through German Eyes," and the "SS Panzer" series).

From what I've experienced and read/listened to so far, I'd have to agree with these claims and that what I'm reading is NOT true.

The fact that this book is advertised as a memoir, and most likely is not, is what makes me angry.

Any additional comments?

I'm really disappointed by books that are now flooding my Audible feed from Sprech Media. I'm a WWII enthusiast, and was excited to see some new "memoirs" from the German point of view. However, I don't believe this book, or any other book advertised as such from Sprech Media, is a memoir. I believe most, if not all, of Sprech Media's titles are 100% fiction written by a ghostwriters.

The story in "Tiger Tracks" is outlandish and reads like a movie script. Everything that happens just feels too extravagant and is too fantastic. There's a ridiculous amount of violence. Heads and arms and limbs flying. Spraying blood. Churned up bodies in tank tracks. Freshly dead bodies steaming in the snow. These gory details and their descriptions are repeated over and over throughout the book.

Many (not just a few) details are historically inaccurate or physically improbable. In a memoir, you'd think that specific locations, units, dates, etc... would be given, but that information is either absent all together or is suspiciously vague. In fact, there's no information in this book that provides the reader the ability to research any of the battles or actions described in the book.

I have no problem with reading WWII fiction. In fact, I think WWII is a great setting for a fictional story, and I wish there were more, better fiction novels set in WWII. "Tiger Tracks" is a pretty good read if you accept the fact that it's probably entirely fiction. It's a quick read, with lots of action. It's really a pretty enjoyable story. HOWEVER, because this book is advertised as a memoir, I have to give it a negative review.

I'd appreciate if Audible took action to correct this probable false advertising. I do not want to spend my money on books/audiobooks thinking that I'm getting an authentic memoir, when, in fact, I'm getting cheap, pulp fiction.

Finally, as a historian, I'm very disappointed that this book (and other Sprech Media titles) is advertised as a historical memoir, when it is not. I am worried that readers will believe the accounts within these books are true, when they are not. Misleading people to believe these accounts as true distorts history and is a dangerous path to go down. These fantastic, outlandish fiction tales, paraded as historic fact, dishonor the real veterans who experienced the horrors of tank warfare, who suffered and lost comrades on the Eastern Front, and diminishes their real and important stories.

If you are interested in this kind of book, but want a real memoir, I'd highly recommend both "Panzer Commander" by Hans von Luck and "Soldat" by Siegfried Knappe.

Real memoir? Dunno bout that...

Real or not this tale is certainly embellished to say the least, all the while claiming to be a memoir. It unwinds like a movie, grim, violent and very visual. The reader will come away with a sense of the horror of the eastern front. Beginning to end the non-stop action makes for a great read, and I will definitely be doing another read through.

gripping

well golly that was a body count higher than any Hollywood film, if you don't like reading about people being blown apart you might find it alarming. BUT if you don't mind that and are interested in a gripping tale of battle on the Eastern Front it's quite exciting.

war porn

And I loved it, the story was ok but in believable. It is a good listen.

Disappointed

This reads like a NOVEL, not at all like a memoir from someone who saw action on the eastern front in WWII.

TIGER TRACKS by Wolfgang Faust - Non stop action.

An incredible book of dubious origin, in a style of comic book cadence, detailed with an authority of seemingly genuine knowledge and experience. The author(s) accurately describe the ferocity of action experienced by the men of the retreating German army on the eastern front. A panzer Gotterdammerung if you will.
I myself served as an armor crewman, fortunately during peace time, on the American
M-48 and M-60 tanks, both of which have more in common with a tank of WW 2 vintage then today's Abrams.
A tank driver has a very limited field of view and must necessarily depend on the TC (tank Commander) to direct the vehicles movement, and when buttoned up would see very little of the battle beyond the narrow field of vision directly in front of him. The scenes, recounted in this book, described in vivid detail, are perhaps too much to be witnessed through a driver’s vision block in real time as narrated.

To be fair to the author however, Wolfgang Faust (a pseudonym), writing in July 1948, as Germany was still clearing the rubble of that catastrophe, says in the forward,

“our experiences are not readily discussed in public today. For this reason, I have written this book, which for me encapsulates the spirit of that war with its slaughter, chaos, universal destruction, and its strange bravery on all sides. I have drawn on what I experienced as a Tiger panzer crewman. Nothing I have set down here is exaggerated or confected”.

The author also mentions encountering domed turreted Stalin tanks in an action which would have occurred before this particular variant appeared in this war. Totally understandable, Veterans often get some of the details wrong after all, they only lived it.

I humbly suggest that this book is a synthesis of memories in retrospect, a desperate struggle, and vignettes of circumstances recalled to the memory of one or more of the participants, pieced together as a story, so to make sense of the incomprehensible.

Nevertheless, a good and entertaining read about the horrors of tank action and war in general, on the eastern front.

Read by George Beckman and clearly narrated.
IMHO -I feel that at some points the author is speaking in a a voice of sarcastic cynicism more so then portrayed by the performer.

Don't waste your time....

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

Perhaps someone with little or no knowledge of WWII on the Russian front. And, perhaps, someone who has never heard a well-performed audio book.

What do you think your next listen will be?

I'm looking for something on Julius Caesar and the Roman Arny.

Would you be willing to try another one of George Backman’s performances?

no.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappointment - this is such a rich topic and this story is terribly weak.

Any additional comments?

I realize the difference between a memoir and a history and have read or listened to many of each. This "memoir" comes off more like an essay by a middle school student. Dry. Boring. Shallow. Generic.

Wow! Just wow!

One of the most shocking, and uncensored war stories I've ever heard. I appreciate the honest details about what he saw.

fake memoir

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

it is sold as a real memoir of a panzer soldier, but it clearly is not. This should be sold as a fictionalized account of life in a Tiger tank.

What was most disappointing about Wolfgang Faust’s story?

It is fake, and the hyperbolic focus on gore and destruction is just not credible

Any additional comments?

This is obviously a fake memoir written by someone who knows tanks well and has some experience with German equipment, but it was not written by a real panzer soldier.Much of the story about capturing a supposed spy and transporting her (!) in a Tiger during repeated battles is just ridiculous.

A massive disappointment.

Having read books in the same vein such as Panzer Commander by Hans von Luck, and Panzer Ace by Richard Freiherr von Rosen I found this Tiger Tracks by Wolfgang Faust along the lines of a single chapter in the fictional novels of a penal panzer battalion by Sven Hassel. And not a very good chapter at that.
Extremely disappointing

I'm glad that's all over

if my 13 year old son had written this for school I would expect a weeks detention.
It's amazing how much you can see through a window of a tank.
5hrs I'll never get back

Fictional account, not true history.

I nearly gave up on this book after the first chapter as it a fictional account.
I returned to it and was surprised to find I quite enjoyed the story. If nothing else, it clarified the roles of Tank crew members.
Short, gruesome but quite a good listen.

Purports to be a true account - I doubt it VERY much.

I purchased this as a supposedly true autobiographical account of tank combat on the Eastern Front, but I simply don’t believe this to be so. Unlike Otto Carius and his excellent ‘Tigers in the Mud’, there are no autobiographical details about the author online or in this book itself. We are thrown immediately into a very specific series of events covering a short period of time involving a battalion sized unit with no context at all, and no back-story. As an English grad, the story to me uses far too many cliched narrative tropes that make it far more like a ‘Sven Hassell’ fictional novel than a true account; lastly, as former military, some of the descriptions of battle and weapons of weapons effects is, to me, absurd - among a number of highly implausible episodes, he claims to have actually seen an 88mm shell pierce and ‘ricochet around’ the interior of an enemy tank before it exploded. A high velocity 88mm shell is not a rubber ball and it would be almost impossible to behave like that, let alone be able SEE it doing so. And this is just one of many highly implausible episodes, yet all taking place not across the years of genuine autobiographical accounts as in Carius’ work (which contained no such implausible absurdities) but all in the space of a few days. If you like ‘Sven Hassell’ you might enjoy this . But as an autobiographical work, it doesn’t deserve more than one star.

Got my attention from the start

Fast moving and it held my interest from start to finish. I agree with one observation of there seemed a tick list of how people die, but having chatted to a couple of men who were on the Russian front, I believe it was that bloody. I also felt some of the seeing faces and looking inside tanks were more imagination than real, but the theatre as Germany tried to pull back from an army continuing to chase and hunt them, the horror must have exceeded their minds ability to grasp the reality. Nothing like Sven Hassel, I might check out another from this author. Strange to hear a clear representation of the Waffen belief in the German army protecting Europe from ‘Ivan’. Very strange and a little twisted.

panzer marche !

really good all round story of the struggles of a ww2 panzer group. Full of vivid descriptions of battle.

Good story.

detailed and well informed story. I found it enjoyable. the life of a tank driver eh.

very interesting point of view

This showed me a side of the war I knew little about and getting it literally from the drivers seat was fantastic.

If you are interested in ww2 and tanks from that era this is for you.

I'm not sure about this...

It would have been better read by someone with a soft German accent, yank tones seemed odd.

The story was OK but it would have been nice to find out how the Faust survived the war... it left a lot of unanswered questions.

the horrors of war

a compelling listen with no hold back on the horrors of war you end up feeling the desperation relief and fear of the tiger crew