Tanks Break Through!
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| Author | Alfred-Ingemar Berndt |
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| Original title | Panzerjäger Brechen Durch! |
| Translator | Steven Lehrer |
| Country | U.S. |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Non-Fiction/History |
| Publisher | SF Tafel |
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Publication date
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November 2016 |
| Media type | Trade Paper |
| Pages | 321 pp |
| ISBN | |
| Preceded by | The German and East German Culture |
| Followed by | The Songs of the Front - Song Collection of the Great German Radio |
Tanks Break Through! (Panzerjäger Brechen Durch!), written by Alfred-Ingemar Berndt, a journalist and close associate of propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, is an eye-witness account of the battles that led to the fall of France. When the 1940 attack was in the offing, Berndt joined the Wehrmacht, was sergeant in an anti-tank division, and afterward published his recollections. The book was originally issued by Franz Eher Nachfolger, the central publishing house of the Nazi Party, in 1940.
Panzerjäger ("armor-hunters" or "tank-hunters") were an anti-tank division that operated anti-tank artillery and made exclusive use of tank destroyers, also named Panzerjäger. Berndt's book about his time with the Panzerjäger is divided into chapters: The Company; A cold chapter [The brutal winter 1939-40]; Five weeks at the Westwall; It begins!; 5:35 am; Bunker cannons on the Albert Canal; Battle for the Gette; Breaking through the Dyle.(The Dyle Plan or D Plan was the failed plan of the French Army to defeat a German invasion through Belgium. The Dyle river is an 86 km long river from Houtain-le-Val through Flemish Brabant and Antwerp and the thwarted objective was to halt the German army along the line of the river.); From Waterloo to Tournai; The battle for the Scheldt and Lys; The Ypres Battering Ram; Victory in Flanders; Gone with the Wind [The Allied evacuation at Dunkirk]; March to the Somme; Storm troops on the Weygand Line; The March on Paris; Panzer leap across the Marne and the Seine; We surround the Maginot Line; Through Burgundy to the Swiss border; Through Lyon to the Alps; Mountain climb before Grenoble; Return home.
Unlike sober military writers, for example Ernst Jünger and his Storm of Steel, with dour descriptions of battle, Berndt has a sense of humor. Here is his account of an enemy attack on his company at the Dyle: “'Thunder and lightning! They’ve got the third company by the throat,' exclaims the adjutant. I’m again at our observation post. Two cannons are shooting simultaneously, their shots fifty meters apart. The first shot lands 10 meters from our leftmost gun, which is under a group of trees. The next shot 10 meters to the left, another 10 meters to the right, the fourth 10 meters behind. It’s like knife-throwing in the circus. Our gun is framed in. A second round follows, identical to the first. Our gun crew has dug in. They can’t see anything. The enemy shoots into a ravine 100 meters behind our gun. Our ammunition trucks are there. The enemy could hit the jackpot. They don’t. They come uncomfortably close. Our entire house, our observation post, is shaken to the foundation. Enemy fire resumes. Will they hit us again? Out of the house; no, they’re shooting at our gun, without results. What a marvel."
At other times Berndt’s description of devastation is poignant, such as a scene he encountered in Ath, a Flemish town: "Seven French tanks, Renaults, stood near the highway. A few were burned up. The charred bodies of the crews hung weirdly from the side openings, as though the dead French were trying to get out. In a side street we found a half-burned wedding coach. A top hat lay on the seat, a white glove on the floor. A piece of bridal veil was caught in the right hand door, along with blood. What happened here? What drama played out?"
Of course, being forced to live off the French countryside has its compensations: "Our supplies can’t keep up with us, yet we live quite well off the land. Water was polluted, water pipes destroyed, the few wells almost dry. The question, what do we drink? is important. Fate leads us past the wine and champagne town Chablis, as well as Burgundy, Beaune, Pommard, the most famous places for red burgundy wine. Castles and villages have been abandoned by their inhabitants; but the company lives well, especially in the wine cellars. It’s true we have an occasional case of drunkenness. The honor of the German soldier is at stake when he stands before a bottle of 1831 St Emilion. He bows artfully to the high altar and slurps the delicious contents. As Goethe wrote in Faust, 'A genuine German man may not want to suffer the French, but he gladly drinks their wine.'”
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