Panzer: A Revolution in Warfare, 1939-1945

by Roger Edwards

The Panzer division was the core of the blitzkrieg which devastated the antiquated doctrines of the allies during World War II. With historical record analysis, photographs and cartographic representation, this offers an insight into this devastation and how the tactic was ultimately directed.

Genres: History, Military Fiction, World War II, Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published November 9, 1989

Reviews

[Jean-Vincent · Rating 3 out of 5]

Recommended.

This book probably gets overlooked by most: too general for the armor historian and too detailed for the general reader. Yet it has many qualities and could very well be on any WWII military historian's bookshelves: It presents the history of the Panzer in a neat, succinct, well illustrated format; It wraps under one cover pretty much all German armor operations during WWII, together with well-designed (if somewhat busy) maps; and finally it presents a short summary of all panzer units and important panzer leaders.

I keep referring to it time and again to get the quick picture of a particular subject, or to see which outfit went where. Some nice, generally well-known pictures are included in the book, but vehicles and planes side views are too basics to be of any real use, except maybe for recognition purpose for those who are not familiar with the hardware.

The book is made of 6 parts and a prelude:

Prelude: The road to war
Part 1. Restoring Mobility to the German Army
Part 2. The Grand Design
Part 3. Fighting the Mobile Battle
Part 4. Air Support: The Decisive Factor
Part 5. Panzer Action in Maps
Part 6. Campaigns and Battles, 1939-1945

Contrary to what the subtitle implies, the book does cover early history of the Panzer force, with a brief overview of Guderian's comments and observation made from WWI (which he published in his Achtung Panzer! ).

All in all, a good little general history book of the Panzer force, well worth getting at any used book bookstore.

[Paul Darcy · Rating 3 out of 5]

By Roger Edwards, published in 1989.

I sometimes dive off into the History of World War 2 books and this in one such adventure.

This book deals “specifically” with the German Panzer divisions, and when I say specifically, I mean SPECIFICALLY.

Nearly every detail of Panzer life, from the generals, machines, air support, supply lines, men and campaigns is written about with great accounting skills right down to how many of each tank, air unit, and ground unit participated in each specific battle on both sides of the engagement.

If you are looking for exact information on every German Panzer division of World War Two, you don’t need to look much further than this text. But it is not just a spreadsheet of statistics (though those are included) it is also a commentary of the decisions made by its commanders, or those decisions overruled by Hitler himself usually to the detriment of the affected Panzer divisions.

If you are fascinated by the tank battles of World War Two, then this book will show you, with maps and figures and lots of black and white photos, concisely what took place during each engagement.

It is a chronicle of every division and reminded me a bit of Band Of Brothers (in reverse) as you can trace each Panzer division through its forming to its end during the entire six years of the war.

Not a read for everybody for sure as it is very dense with details, but a great resource for those wishing to know more about the German War machine on the ground.

[Rick Wong · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good reference book about the German Panzer divisions, though I keep thinking it's about the whole Wehrmacht.