Two books on WW2 - which is the memoir and which the novel?

one rather nice thing about being me is that people sometimes send me books this is great and I do not wish for one instant to come across in any way as ungrateful but I do have to say to people that if you do send me a book and I don't want to discourage you please don't expect me to read it anytime soon particularly if it's very long I when I read a book I take careful notes usually and I'm not the quickest to readers but two books that I have been sent that I want to talk about in this video ah from the city from the plow by Alexander Baron and the last Panther by full gang Faust both of these books were sent to me quite unexpectedly out of the blue and this one was sent to me by the curator of the Bovington Tank Museum and he says not tanks but this one is to me an all-time classic and I thought were great although it was a little bit surprised because if it were an all-time classic about world war 2 I would expect to have heard of it have you heard of it I've asked lots of people who are into books and World War 2 and military and stuff do they know this book and it seems that they don't which is odd because it was in its day an enormous hit it came out shortly after the war and very quickly sold over a million copies it was if you like the All Quiet on the Western Front but for the World War Two All Quiet on the Western Front is a very famous film in fact it's two films and a mini series at but it was originally of course a book a novel and it tells the the ordinary story of ordinary soldiers being trained and then going to fight in World War one and after World War two publishers weren't publishing very many war books people have had six years of war and they wanted escapism but they were reading stuff about commandos and loads and loads of prisoner of war escape books and spies and so forth they the individual heroes and members of elite units some of those books were selling but just ordinary man goes to war people who had wanted escapism but from the city from the plow which was originally called 5th battalion but the publishers changed it for a lesson military sounding name because they thought it would be more commercial is a story about the ordinary man going to war and it's a novel but it actually a thinly-veiled memoir because the the author Alexander Barron who was actually Bernstein will the Americans would say Bernstein for some reason he was a communist he was actually the leader of the young Communist League and had that stopped him being an officer for instance because you can't have officers who was communist you know that just doesn't do it all when he people before the war even started he wanted to to fight in the Spanish Civil War but for the International Brigade but the Communist Party in Britain forbade him because they considered him too valuable and he also wanted to join the RAF but he was not allowed to because he had poor eyesight and to do that he had to go against the Communist Party's wishes because don't forget at the start of World War two the Communists and the fascists are allies and so the Communists didn't want to do anything to upset their allies so they were discouraging people from signing up but Alexandre Baron Bernstein he wanted to do his bit he wanted to fight fascists and he joined up did his basic training he went to Sicily then later e14 Italy and then he was taken back to Britain and retrained in readiness for d-day and before launching for d-day he burnt a lot of his kit it wasn't just him loads of men were doing this they had to strip down to just what they were going to carry with them and all their extra bits and bobs if they weren't going to send it home or whatever just burn it and one of the things he burnt was a novel he had written yet he'd written a novel but clearly I content exactly what was in it but clearly he thought it was now worthless because if it's his experiences he had been taking notes in preparation for writing a novel about the war about the experience of going to war about men in war and what they're actually like and he decided that the book that he'd already written was in the light of his experience now rubbish he had witnessed a lot of quite disturbing things for instance he saw a lot of soldiers taking sexual advantage of a homosexual soldier and these were miners as in coal miners and he had been brought up in the Communist League to believe that these were absolute models of proletarian perfection and yet they were behaving in this extremely questionable way and that shocked him to his core and he another time he was swimming in the sea and a load of Highlanders came along and started lobbing grenades into the sea which went off and drove ala Alex and his colleagues deeper deeper into into the sea to get away from the the grenades and then when the Highlanders got bored they went away and then it later turned out that one of the men had drowned and he was shocked see how these men viewed life in war as just so cheap another thing that he was when writing this unafraid to do was show officers in actually quite a good light the officers not all of them but most of the offices in this are basically decent and even very good people oh and in common in accord with an earlier video of mine called British officers don't darker than if you've seen that one not once not twice not four four times four times in this book a British officer is under very heavy fire and whilst everyone else is taking cover stands as though in no danger whatsoever and calmly gets on with giving orders and inspires the men by so doing it always described as very inspiring although Mittal II one of these men does get shot but there you go still very inspiring now this book was hugely praised by the critics for being absolutely believable it rang absolutely true and it was ringing true with men who had been there and done that and you know that that's a huge compliment to its its realism in fact it was so real that a lot of people started putting two and two together and realizing that hang on I think I served in this unit yes the v Wessex which is the the unit in the battalion which is the the star of this show is actually based on the fifth Wilshire's and some of the individuals were based on actual real-life individuals so this is really you could say a warm memoir thinly disguised as a novel but it gives him a lot of license to examine the thoughts of the going through men's heads he having been to war he felt that he understood men an awful lot better and I do love the way it's written it's got its quite stark a lot of the time but there's just enough poetry in it to carry the atmosphere for instance some now towards dawn the barrage was slackening the men moved over the last hilltop that faced their objective and walked quietly downhill their rifles at the trail or slung hidden from view by the milky white mist that clung to the hillsides the infantryman filed silently into their positions along the valley sinking down out of sight against the banks of sunken lanes the icy Jews soaked through their trousers the chill of the dawn lay like cold steel against their cheeks the first light stealing over the ridge touched the black fringe of the treetops on the hillside and a multitude of birds awoke to shrill song there was no other sound in the morning he says a lot with that those men walked to the start line to go into action these at this this point these are these are veterans who have been through the thick of it and have lost many friends and they are just getting on with it and no one is talking no one is talking the fact that there's no dialogue here and the birds are singing of those are the only sounds says so much about those men just getting on with it and I love the phrase lay like cold steel against their cheeks that's just I can feel it it's visceral cold feeling and my cold steel you think of a bayonet or something don't you against the cheek it's that they're the threat of death that's with you anyway as I say it's largely about just what real men are like in war and in training for war and I thought I'd read a longer excerpt if that's all right with you so setting the scene now the men are being trained in how to use the Bren gun and just in case you don't know what the Bren gun is it's a very fine light machine gun that was used in World War two by the British and I've made some videos about the Bren gun you might want to watch the right sergeant Shannon looked around him most of the platoon were watching intently one or two seemed bored the big Irishman stood slackly looking away over their heads towards the sea he caught the sergeant's eye and for a moment returned his stare then he turned his head and looked out to sea again the move was deliberate studied sergeant Shannon knew about men and he knew that there was a challenge to him here but he was determined not to pick on the man he ignored him and moved over again towards the men on the guns three more men came out they were just beginning to dismantle the guns when the sergeant heard a rumbling whisper behind him he knew before he turned that it was the Irishman that'll do Mulroney he said quietly pay attention now like the rest private Mulrooney rumbled the Irishman was that the sort of straightened up sharply towards him addressed me by my rank sergeant said the Irishman same as I do you I am a soldier with service with service sergeant I know my rights the sergeant sucked at his lower lip for a second you may be with us for some time he said quietly while I look for trouble you do best to learn to get on with the lads and with me this lawyer stuff will do you no good here I know you're right as well as you do and I'll not try and deny them to you now stand up straight and pay attention the Irishman straightened up the other men were watching him now he did it exaggeratedly derisively his face was impassive but his eyes were grinning the sergeant ignored him and called the attention of the platoon back to the guns as he directed the next three men he fought with a little core of worry within was he being too easy he wondered was he giving this man the idea that he was frightened of an encounter maybe he thought I should have acted on my hunch and ridden him from the start give this kind an inch and they'll take a yard and a half the Irishman would be clever he knew that damned clever able to go to and ridicule an NCO without saying anything punishable able to call to his aid ever rule in the Kings regulations the sergeant looked up and to call the next three men he found half the platoon ignoring the guns looking instead at the Irishman Mulrooney stood turned half away leaning on his rifle Mulrooney said the sergeant I'll not tell you again face your front Mulrooney faced front what's the first thing you do is not the sergeant when you strip a Bren private Mulroney no offense sergeant answered Mulrooney his voice was unexpectedly soft and deadly but they were stripping down guns before years out of school do you not wonder I don't interest myself in it no more look he held up his sleeve with service stripes there seven years sergeant he said you're not be ignoring them now will you here was the challenge direct sergeant Shannon knew that his platoon liked him but they had not yet been into battle with him some of them had only known him for this short period of training he knew how uneasy was the relationship how easily it could be upset how quickly he could be discredited he knew that this man sullen and alone though he was had the fire in him and the brute power that could make him contend for the leadership of any group in which he found himself regardless of rank threats or punishment would not stop this man Shannon knew that the Irishman had the resource and the prestige of an old soldier and above all he would be among the men day and night living with them in their Hut while Shannon only saw them on parade intriguing provoking telling them his tale with a slice skill of an old soldier Shannon knew his man and he knew that the only way to avoid being made a fool by this towering Irishman was to make a fool of him to win the rest of the platoon against him to isolate him there will be no absorbing of this man into the group to try would be foolish so will sergeant Shannon best private Mulrooney you're gonna have to read the book to find out so there you go so there's one book and now the next book is the last Panther now this one another true story it's the the memoirs of a panther tank commander and he's in the castle it's 1945 and the the Soviet forces have completely surrounded the ninth army about 25 miles south of Berlin and they're in a castle which means cauldron or pocket if you like so the Germans want to break out they want to break out because they do not want to have to surrender to the Soviets surrender the Soviets means right for the women and and possibly death for the men or at best being sent to a gulag and being starved and frozen and then probably death again so they do not want to surrender to the Russian so they have to fight West link-up with the 12th army and get across the river Elbe and surrender instead to the Americans so that's the the true life if you like historical setting of this book and I started reading it and in my manner I started taking notes when I when I read a book I take notes so when device start here we go the last Panther started my notes there and I was taken there was quite a lot in this book and I was taking detailed notes for several pages until I got to chapter 3 which is there and then that's all my notes for the entirety of the rest of the book because I came to a conclusion by chapter 3 and that is this book is a fake there are me right from the start that had some suspicion but I took it on trust but it looks it hasn't look physical look of the self-published book it doesn't say who the translator is at the front it says the estate of Wolfgang Faust it gives no details about the original German language version but it insists that it was translated from a book that too was written a long time ago by someone who was there in the war itself I noticed later looking in the back that another book by Wolfgang Faust Wolfgang Faust that's just so German that name isn't in military he's a fencer of Pancer crewmen so he might be Panzerfaust yeah right it's called Tiger tracks and there's a review of it and the review says among the most impressive narratives of the Eastern Front that I have read the pages are alive with character their machines their struggles their decisions and their pain readers will finish this book haunted and truly moved the mark of a great story according to Chris Ziegler the translator of the last Panther yeah so probably actually the translator of tiger tracks and probably I would say the author of tiger tracks and the last Panther there are quite a few historically questionable things for instance at one point he shoots at a Russian through the pistol port in the in the rear of his Panther turret which is odd because the rear turret of a panther didn't have a pistol port and it's odd that he he gives no specific dates and no names of individuals or units that would make any of this verifiable there's only one named character in the whole book and that's his commanding officer who's simply called capo the the German words when they appear are a bit mangled which is odd for someone translating from the German with their German would be pretty good wouldn't it and but most of all the thing which really made me more suspicious than anything else was the sheer spectacular nests of absolutely everything that happens it's just action action action all the way and when when a load of men that are felled by a burst of machine-gun fire they are decapitated really decapitate I'm not going to say that's impossible but it's pretty unlikely and he sees so much he sees everything and when I read other tankers memoirs they often talk about seeing a flash in a hedgerow some thousand or two yards away and firing several shots at that hedge and then nothing fires back so did they get it has the guy retreated was there nothing there in the first place they're firing it suspicions of the enemy but in this the enemies always in plain sight suddenly a t-34 appears 50 yards away and tanks are ramming each other a lot everything happens in very very close quarter plain view and he sees a lot of time he describes himself as buttoned up in his tank and looking at things through his periscope it's amazing what he's able to see through his periscope at night in the middle of a battle the detail he's is every hitch hitting every tank whenever there's a fight between several tanks he can tell you exactly which tank fired at which when and and what happened and well I'll just just read one description here some some yank Panzer force oh that's not a thing which may be suspicious in this book he comes across like B the German tank spotters guide to of all the favorite tanks he comes across Panthers and YAG Panthers and King Tigers and tigers and YAG Tigers and hexes and you know just the hole he's got the set in here anyway three yanked Panzer fours are trying to make a dash across the open at this point just as the low squat vehicle lurched off into the clearing the shapes of Sturmovik s-- tore over us their shadows filling the roadway the yank pants are accelerated committed now to making a break for the dense of trees and made it half way then a volley of rockets smashed down through the trees splitting the branches apart and struck the yank Panzer directly on its flank the machine reared up into the air they do an awful lot of rearing up into the air machines in this and you'd strictly no rearing I would say anyway and it crashed down onto its tracks and lost control oh yeah almost every vehicle knocked out and this if it's small it flies end-over-end a few times and if it's a tank it's usually going at very high speed when it gets hit which means it could then veer off course and then near invariably crash into something significant which then usually explodes with smoke pouring from it's grilled it vietze I told you it would veer it veered sideways into the trees beside the roads road knocking down several in its momentum and tipping over onto its side the trees swayed and crashed to the ground and and this only exposed the stretch of road more brutally giving the red pilots a clearer view of what was down in the forest flames poured from the yank Panthers engine as it came to a stop in a whirl of broken wood its upper deck facing the brick in the tree cover yeah yeah right there are awful lot of the mountains of fire that illuminate the landscape perfer miles around and and coils of smoke or think things being raised in smoke or flame yeah it's a it's a tale which takes historical inspiration of an actual event but I'm quite unconvinced by this and when I got to the end I did a bit of googling I found that several other people have come to the same conclusion no one seems to have been able to find trace of the German original or anything else about the Wolfgang Faust or any of the units that he's meant to have been with I haven't read the last that the other book he read he wrote Tiger tracks nor will I though apparently I found it in a forum online a number of people thought it was a bit questionable that in 1943 he appears to be fighting against Joseph Stalin threes which didn't come out until right near the end of the war in 1945 so yes if you want to read a book about what actually goes through a real man's mind when he goes to war then I would definitely recommend this one if by contrast you want to read about loads and loads of really big explosions there's always this one [Music] the man [Music]

Channel: Lindybeige

Views: 206,736

Rating: 4.9379416 out of 5

Keywords: books, memoir, memoirs, novel, fact, fiction, history, account, fake, publishing, reading, ww2, wwii, panther, last, plough, city, from, wolfgang faust, alex baron, alexander baron

Id: z7Cjo_Ft28U

Length: 21min 13sec (1273 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 04 2018