Panzerschlachten
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| Author | Friedrich von Mellenthin |
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| Original title | Panzerschlachten |
| Language | German, English |
| Genre | Memoirs |
| Publisher | University of Oklahoma Press |
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Publication date
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1956 (U.S. edition) |
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Panzerschlachten (Panzer Battles) is the German language title of Friedrich von Mellenthin's autobiographical account of his service as a staff officer in the Panzerwaffe of the German Army during World War II. The first English edition, as Panzer Battles: A Study of the Employment of Armor in the Second World War, was published in 1956 by the University of Oklahoma Press.
Panzer Battles was part of the exculpatory memoirs genre that fed the post-war revisionist narrative, put forth by Wehrmacht generals. The book was instrumental in forming the misconceptions of the U.S. view of Eastern Front military operations up to the mid-to-late 1990s, when Soviet archival sources became available to Western and Russian historians.
The book covers the North African campaign where Mellenthin served with the Afrika Corps, while also describing engagements of the XXXXVIII Panzer Corps on the Eastern Front from 1943 up to the spring of 1944.
The veracity of Panzer Battles and Mellenthin's other works has been called into question over the years. The historian Wolfram Wette lists Mellenthin in the group of German generals who authored apologetic, uncritical studies on World War II, alongside Ferdinand Heim, Kurt von Tippelskirch, Waldemar Erfurth and others.
Military historian David Glantz in his review of the book calls it an "operational/tactical account of considerable merit", which showed the negative impact of Hitler's interference in the military operations. Glantz points out that Mellenthin's experiences on the Eastern Front took place before spring 1944, and thus "reflected impressions acquired principally during years of German success". Further, written without the benefit of either German or Soviet records, the book suffers from incomplete or incorrect interpretations of Soviet forces, dispositions and intentions. Glantz provides an example of operations along the Chir River against the Soviet 5th Tank Army, following the encirclement of the 6th Army in the Soviet Operation Uranus. Mellenthin describes the German tactical actions as a great success but omits the larger operational context:
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