It has been speculated that von Krauss joined Hitler’s regiment of bodyguards, the SS Leibstandarte, in 1933. From the subject matter of many of his novels, it is also thought that von Krauss served throughout the war initially as an armoured car commander and later as a Tiger tank commander, either in the Waffen SS or the Heer, or possibly both. The Gross Deutschland division has also been suggested as a possibility.
In 1945 von Krauss is understood to have escaped capture by the Russians and also to have slipped out of a British POW camp. As a result, he was never officially de-Nazified and, lacking the appropriate papers, he was unable to work in Germany and so began a game of cat and mouse with the German authorities that saw him serve briefly in the ranks of The French Foreign Legion, from which he was invalided out, suffering from malaria, an illness from which he never fully recovered.
It is never an easy task to render the thoughts of a writer from his native language into a secondary language, and one has to be careful to guard against creating a new work. Unfortunately, it is not possible to provide a complete translation of every word of the original manuscript. However, I feel it was important to preserve the essence of the German roots of the novel. I have preserved the original chapter headings and a larger than usual number of German words, which are hopefully sufficient to make it clear at all times that we are in a foreign army. This is especially true of the ranks of the political soldiers of the Waffen SS. I’d like to think the balance is about right, but please accept my apologies if you have to reach for the German dictionary more than you would like.
As with Tiger Command!, I’ve taken out a number of phrases such as “cleaned his clock”, meaning to kill a tank, as there is no real English equivalent. Unfortunately, once again, a large number of the jokes told by Otto Wohl have been lost in the rewriting process as they did not survive the act of translation with any semblance of humour still intact. Other German references have also lost some of their charm. If you don’t know, for example, that the German word vogel translates as bird, then you won’t get the reference made by von Schroif concerning the pun on the liaison officer’s name.
Other German phrases however have survived. “To bite into the grass” is recognisable as our own “pushing up daisies.” As it is utilised in a German setting, I have used the German phrase in preference to the English version. For those of you unfamiliar with the ways of the German language, Sturmgeschütz is singular, while the additional letter ‘e’ on the end signifies the plural.
Panzertruppenschule Kama, or KAMA for short, was a top-secret research and training facility, located near Kazan in the USSR. It was jointly operated by the Soviets and Germans between 1926 and 1933. Oberstleutnant Malbrandt was the Reichswehr officer who selected the location for the training and testing of military technology. The site was chosen to be as far away as possible from the prying eyes of League of Nations inspectors. It was a school for the study and development of armoured warfare. KAMA was the short form codename created by the fusion of the words Kazan and Malbrandt. KAMA came out of the brief period of Russo-German cooperation that was agreed upon as a part of the Treaty of Rapallo of 1922, and the Berlin Friendship Treaty of 1924.
Between 1926 and 1929, at least 146 German officers are known to have completed training at the Panzertruppenschule Kama. A great many more NCOs and perspective officers received clandestine assistance. The most famous ‘graduate’ of KAMA was Ewald von Kleist, future Generalfeldmarschall of the Reichswehr.
Generaloberst Lutz and NKVD Kommissar Josef Unshlicht were jointly responsible for conducting the training. Security for the facility was provided by troops of the NKVD.
Several armoured fighting vehicles were developed at Kama, under the alias of agricultural tractors. The German companies Rheinmetall-Borsig, Krupp and Daimler Benz were responsible for most of the development. The preliminary work at Kama resulted in the designs for the Panzer I, II, III and IV. The training and development which took place at Kama made the Panzerwaffe a reality.
Also in the series…
When Germany’s leading tank ace meets Russia’s Steppe Fox it’s a fight to the death. Faced with overwhelming odds, Kampfgruppe Hans von Schroif needs a better armored vehicle and fast; but the new Tiger tank is still on the drawing board. Now, von Schroif must overcome bureaucracy, espionage, and relentless Allied bombing to get the Tiger into battle in time to meet the ultimate challenge.
Based on a true story of combat on the Russian Front, this powerful novel written by Emmy™ Award author Bob Carruthers and newcomer Sinclair McLay. It tells the gripping saga of how the Tiger tank was born and a legend was forged in the heat of combat.
Gritty, intense and breath-taking in its detail, this sprawling epic captures the reality of the lives and deaths of the tank crews fighting for survival on the Eastern Front, a remarkable novel worthy of comparison with ‘Das Boot’.
Copyright
This edition published in 2013 by Pen & Sword Fiction
An imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd
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First published in Great Britain in 2012 by Coda Books Ltd.
Copyright © Coda Books Ltd, 2012
Published under licence by Pen & Sword Books Ltd.
ISBN: 9781783462421
EPUB ISBN: 9781473847835
PRC ISBN: 9781473847941
The rights of Bob Carruthers and Sinclair McLay to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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