Peter Tsouras writes about the source of his new book, Panzers on the Eastern Front. It is the latest in a long line of German World War II debriefs to be published by Greenhill which include Fighting in Normandy, Fighting the Invasion, Inside the Afrika Korps, Hitler’s Ardennes Offensive and Fighting in Hell: “I first came across writings of Generaloberst Erhard Raus in early 1971 while serving as a young armor officer with the United States Army in Germany. Published as Department of the Army pamphlets, they had lain untouched in my company commander’s office for ages, it seemed, from all the dust I disturbed when I pulled them out of the bookcase. Being something of a Germanophile at the time, I was fascinated by these little gems of history. As I read on, it was obvious that the distilled experiences of German generals on the Russian Front were of such immediacy to our present mission-the victors of Stalingrad, the 8th Guards Army, were just 40 kilometers east of us­ -that I wondered why they were so little known. After all, the Soviet Armed Forces were in the full flood of expansion, preparing for the great Theater Strategic Operation (TSO) meant to carry them to the Channel and the Pyrenees. I was also struck by the anonymity of the authors of these pamphlets. The Army had given a brief resume, but also added the statement that the author wished to remain anonymous. It was only years later, when I found the bible behind the pamphlets at the Army Library in the Pentagon-the Guide to Foreign Military Studies1-that I was able to unravel this mystery. This was the story of the US Army’s program to capture the experience of the senior German officers. Now I knew the name of the author-Erhard Raus-but, in all my reading of Eastern Front operations, the name had not stuck in my memory. Who was he? Who was this man who had so many dramatic and breathtaking stories at his fingertips? The more I looked, the more impressed I became with one of the great unsung commanders of the twentieth century-a man who led the spearhead of the relief force that drove for the trapped Sixth Army in Stalingrad, the man who had commanded the brilliant defense in the Fourth Battle of Kharkov, the man who had led three panzer armies with distinction, and the man who was such a master of the art of war and leadership that his men coined a phrase for the saving effects of those qualities: ‘Raus zieht heraus!’ (Raus pulls you through!).” Erhard Raus’s narrative will be published in March by Greenhill as Panzers on the Eastern Front, edited by Peter G. Tsouras. Back to Greenhill Military Book News No. 112 Table of Contents Back to Greenhill Military Book News List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 2001 by Greenhill Books This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com