This is going sound rude and abrupt: But Panzer Leader was one of the first German memoirs I read and I regret doing so at a young age. I learned a lot of 'wrong' things about the war that took a lot of time to unlearn. Guderian was a first rank prima donna.
I would stay away from German General memoirs and German military fan books first and go for more objective and academic material.
I can't recommend 'Panzer Leader' (sorry, Durendal)- it has a lot of historical revisionism and German general excuse making. Like Speer's 'Inside the Third Reich', it's a book that is better digested critically with full understanding of their agendas. Ditto for Manstein's "Lost Victories".
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These books are not general histories (like Ziemke) and jump right into organizational specifics:
Stumbling Colossus (pre war Red Army, and its predicament and its strategic planning)
Colossus Reborn (best overview of the Red Army in 1941-1943, outstanding)
The Bloody Triangle (about the destruction of Soviet mechanized corps in the Ukraine in 1941 and why it happened, and why the Soviet armored force collapsed so quickly)
Red Army Tank Commanders: The Armored guards- About the Tank generals of the elite of Red Army- the leaders of their Tank armies.
^
These go into the disasters experienced by the Red Army in the summer/fall of 1941 and explain why they occur a lot more than general histories IMO. Institutional understanding should come first in my view.
German side:
War without Garlands is a great read about the German soldier in Barbarossa.
Eastern Front Inferno: Diary of a Panzerjaeger: What makes this books valuable is it is the unedited diaries of a veteran soldier that was killed in 1943. Inside are things that are usually edited out by German memorists: vivid depictions of war crimes (Kiev and other places) , mass murder, and cruelty of the German soldiers of his division- the author even writes about himself and how he beat Soviet POWs. He saw lots of brutal combat. It's a real gem.
Fast forward into 1943 and you have 2 operational histories about two major campaigns from the SS point of view. While the author is a fan of the SS and biased, he does used soviet sources and overall his books are of a much higher level than all the rest of the SS panzer books (in english). Read with some caution. He focuses on the SS divisions. His book on Citadel is supposed to be good but I didn't read it yet.
Last Victory in Russia, Decision in the Ukraine
From the Don to the Dnepr From another author, this time soviet side- the most significant part of the book is the greater half that's about the Kharkov-B operation (the other 1/3rd covers the same situation as in 'Last victory')- Kursk is distorted in Western historiography- in reality only the first two weeks of a campaign that lasted the rest of the summer. The Soviets launched two massive offensives with new weapons (Soviet Artillery penetration corps) that broke the back of the Wehrmacht in the east and this book is about one of them. The other was the offensive for Orel. There was nothing but retreat after this. But this is a great book that shows the beginnings of a new soviet offensive style that was to become their hallmark in 44' and 45'.
There are lots more, but don't have time to write now.
Hoping this thread can help me out.
Can anyone recommend me some good books on the Eastern Front? I'm generally more interested in the early stages of combat 1941 - 43 if that helps.
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