The Last Panther - Slaughter of the Reich - The Halbe Kessel 1945 Quotes

“That was the way my war ended, in May 1945, on the West bank of the Elbe, under American occupation but without an American in sight. After my two years of fighting, after Kursk and the retreat to the West, after the Halbe Kessel and the fields full of bodies. After everything I was ashamed of, and everything that I took pride in, my war ended with a drunken Kettenhund shooting a hole in my shoulder blade.”
― Wolfgang Faust, The Last Panther - Slaughter of the Reich - The Halbe Kessel 1945

“It was amazing to think that the complete Hetzer vehicle, at barely sixteen tonnes, weighed less than the turret on a King Tiger, which I believe weighed eighteen tonnes. How many more Hetzers could Germany have built, for the cost of the five hundred King Tigers which we produced in total in our factories? Two thousand Hetzers, or three thousand? What effect would this have had on the war? Such questions can lead to all manner of calculations and alternatives.”
― Wolfgang Faust, The Last Panther - Slaughter of the Reich - The Halbe Kessel 1945

“For both the soldiers and civilians in the Kessel, therefore, escaping and surrendering to the Americans (and not the encircling Soviets) became a desperate priority.”
― Wolfgang Faust, The Last Panther - Slaughter of the Reich - The Halbe Kessel 1945

“In these meadows, there were junkyards of armoured vehicles, where long rows of our panzers were lined up in the grass: rusting, abandoned and silent. The little Hetzers, the Stugs, the great Tigers, the great Panthers; all waiting in the sunset, empty, row upon row, leaking oil, with birds making nests in their turrets. It seems that when a war ends, there is too much metal left over, too much steel, and all the panzers lose their value.”
― Wolfgang Faust, The Last Panther - Slaughter of the Reich - The Halbe Kessel 1945

“shielding their eyes against the light. These men”
― Wolfgang Faust, The Last Panther - Slaughter of the Reich - The Halbe Kessel 1945

“In the distance, as the land fell away to the East, I saw a corridor of flames and explosions which surely marked the limit of the Twelfth Army’s advance.”
― Wolfgang Faust, The Last Panther - Slaughter of the Reich - The Halbe Kessel 1945

“There was no benefit in trying to make the machine go on any further. The river Elbe was within walking distance, the fuel was gone, and the engine was in danger of catching fire.  We drove the old panzer further into the marshes, knowing this was the end, and not wanting the machine to fall into any other hands, either Russian, American or even German. With the wounded and the civilians lifted off, we drove the Panther in second gear for a few more metres, until it hit a stretch of water surrounded by bulrushes. It began to subside, the engine end going down first. We jumped clear and watched it sink. With fumes rising into the air, the front plate rose up, the long gun barrel dripping with marsh water. The cupola, from which I had seen so much and given so many orders in the heat of combat, filled up with the stagnant water, and slid below the surface. There were some final bubbles and fumes. I stood there in silence as the green weeds gathered over the Panther, and, when the surface was still, I turned with my crew and we walked at the head of our small column along the choked roads down to the great River Elbe.”
― Wolfgang Faust, The Last Panther - Slaughter of the Reich - The Halbe Kessel 1945

“But for us to serve Germany in the future, we must surrender to the Americans. That is our task now.”
― Wolfgang Faust, The Last Panther - Slaughter of the Reich - The Halbe Kessel 1945

“The Panther and Tiger engines were of a similar design: a motor unit encased in a solid armoured steel box, with the radiators in separate steel boxes on either side. This was intended to give protection from water if the panzer had to ford a river, because few bridges could take the forty-eight tonne weight of the Panther or the almost seventy tonnes of the King Tiger. But this protective design caused the motor unit to overheat easily in its steel coffin, and engine fires were a common problem.”
― Wolfgang Faust, The Last Panther - Slaughter of the Reich - The Halbe Kessel 1945

“How many more Hetzers could Germany have built, for the cost of the five hundred King Tigers which we produced in total in our factories? Two thousand Hetzers, or three thousand? What effect would this have had on the war? Such questions can lead to all manner of calculations and alternatives.”
― Wolfgang Faust, The Last Panther - Slaughter of the Reich - The Halbe Kessel 1945

“moved,”
― Wolfgang Faust, The Last Panther - Slaughter of the Reich - The Halbe Kessel 1945