ISBN 0-921991-58-4
138 pages

Publishers' Acknowledgements; Editors' Remarks; Introduction; photos

Appendices: Biography of Heinrich Engel; Synopsis of Action; Sturmgeschutz-Batterie 660; Sturmgeschutz-Abteilung 259

   In our little ghetto of WWII-related books, few genres exceed the popularity of German memoirs, especially German memoirs from the Russian front. Heinrich Engel's simple but thoroughly affable diary of his service in the German army is a perfect example of such a simple book proving to be popular beyond expectations. Engel's record of his service—jotted down, according to the blurb on the back cover, on the spot—takes the form of daily journal entries accompanied by a great many photographs snapped by the author and others with the camera he carried with him constantly. For such an unadorned, unambitious diary of daily events, it's difficult to ascertain exactly how 7,000 Kilometers in a Sturmgeschutz manages to transcend the ordinary, but in sum it proves to be a touching, memorable story of one man's war.
   Engel was called to service in August 1939 and spent two mostly uneventful weeks in Poland before his unit was transferred to the west. In March 1940 he became a Stug III driver and, following the Phoney War, took part in the attack on France with Sturmgeschutz Batterie 660. Here's how Engel describes his first action:

   We moved on throughout the next night and, in the morning of 15 May 1940, we reached Nousonville, where the infantry had already waited a day for us. The Meuse crossing was to be forced that day. For the time being, we remained in cover with our Sturmgeschutze and waited for morning. At 0800 hours sharp our Stukas arrived and opened the attack. At short range we watched them dive on the bunkers on the far bank of the Meuse. Shortly thereafter we went into position with our Sturmgeschutze in a mountain garden high above the Meuse.
   I moved up against a thick wall that blocked our firing and, with a crash, it fell about fifteen meters down to the road on the right bank of the Meuse. I quickly moved half a meter back. At that point we had a good field of fire and engaged machine-gun nests and bunkers with direct fire from our 7.5-cm guns. Soon we had expended all our ammunition and went back to resupply. It was only then that I discovered that my gun commander had been wounded. Leutnant H. jumped in to replace him. After our assault gun had been properly packed full with ammunition, we went forward again. This time we remained on the road. We entered the extremely narrow Meuse Valley and stayed to the right of the Meuse. We were spotted by the enemy and effectively fired on. In order to get a better field of fire we moved across the Nousonville railroad station.
   We "blessed" the enemy positions with more then 100 rounds of high-explosive and armor-piercing projectiles. We were in the middle of the train tracks. However, I was unable to turn on them, so I moved on across all of the tracks. I then hooked to the left and stepped on it back through the still-closed railroad crossing guard. We were still receiving machine-gun fire.

   On 22 June 1941 Engel, his sturmgeschutz, and his unit took part in Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, and this campaign comprises the bulk of the book, replete as always with plentiful black and white photos taken along the way. In his usual matter-of-fact tone, Engel records the daily events swirling around him. He describes the constant combat, but he seems just as interested in writing about meals and sleep. At the end of February 1942, with his sciatica flaring up, the author was evacuated to Germany for medical treatment. In May 1943 he was finally discharged from hospital to become an instructor. Instead, he ended up volunteering to serve with his old battery commander in a new unit where Engel would be a sturmgeschutz commander. By August 1943 he was back on the Russian front with his own assault gun in Sturmgeschutz Abteilung 259.
   By this point in the war, the action was hotter than ever, and Engel and his mates raced from engagement to engagement as they were called upon to halt Soviet penetrations time after time. On 8 September in one remarkable sequence Engel's gun destroyed sixteen Soviet tanks, including twelve within the span of twenty minutes. For that action he was awarded the Knight's Cross. In all, within six weeks back at the front Engel's Stug knocked out twenty-five enemy tanks.

   10 October 1943: On the stroke of 0500 hours the Russian artillery resumed its pounding barrage. We got ready immediately; we packed our things and warmed up the engines. The Russians attacked about five kilometers farther south. We were ordered there and attached to another division. We moved to Scewseenk and went into firing position east of there.
   With six or seven Sturmgeschutze that were widely dispersed, we were screening at an antitank ditch where a Russian tank had got stuck a few days before and in which our infantry was located. A German counterattack immediately followed from the right and we were supposed to be there to secure the flank. I was not satisfied with our firing position. I was unable to adequately observe the terrain, which rose gently. About 100 meters beyond the antitank ditch was a hedgerow of the sort that was so well common in Russia. That would be a good firing position.
   I asked the infantry whether the Russians had taken possession of the hedgerow yet, but was unable to get a satisfactory answer. Yesterday a platoon of infantry (only four men) had been out front but had been pulled back during the night. The walls of the antitank ditch had fallen in at the place where we were. We tried moving across the antitank ditch with the Sturmgeschutz and it worked. We moved to the hedgerow and then had a good field of fire.
   All of a sudden, four Russian T 34's emerged on our left. The German counterattack had just started on our right. The Russian tanks wanted to intervene, but they had to move right across our field of fire. We knocked out two of the tanks right off. The others came into the field of fire of the Sturmgeschutze located just to my right, and another was knocked out. The fourth Russian tank thereupon turned around and attempted to move back. At that point, he had to cross our field of fire again, this time from right to left. He moved at top speed, but round after round left the barrel of our gun. He only had 100 meters or so to move to get back to his departure position in the village. However, our fifth or sixth round hit him somewhere. He came to a stop! "He's stopped!" we shouted. That was as good as a sure thing. We were now very quiet in our Sturmgeschutz. I let the cross-level settle down and corrected the range: "1,700 meters. Fire when ready!" Observing through the scissors telescope, I followed the two-second tracer path of the armor-piercing round. Closer and closer it came to the tank—a hit! The turret flew some distance away and the tank burned! Then it was noisy again in the Sturmgeschutz and, as we had done so often before, we all shouted: "A Hit! It's burning!"

   As before, however, the author seems just as enthusiastic when describing his sausage, pudding, cigarettes, and card games. His diary ends in October 1943, and in November, felled by another attack of sciatica, he returned to Germany where he remained doing limited duty with a training and replacement battalion until the end of the war. Part of the appeal of this book might come from the fact that Engel (unlike some of his crewmates) survived serious combat at the front, only to be taken out of action by a medical condition.
   Accompanying the text, Engel's numerous photos—mostly in focus, but a few blurry—range from casual snapshots of his mates to interesting battlefield scenes to a few remarkable (and explicit) pictures of burning tanks and corpses. In addition to the diary entries and photos, the book includes a one-page biography of Engel, excerpts from his Knight's Cross citation, and outline histories of Sturmgeschutz Batterie 660 and Sturmgeschutz Abteilung 259.
   Although not the most important study of the Second World War to appear in print this year, 7,000 Kilometers in a Sturmgeschutz is guaranteed to hold the reader's attention with its simple, factual, day-by-day memories of what is was like to be a crewman, and then commander, in a German armored fighting vehicle on the Russian front. Definitely worth a read.
   Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from J.J. Fedorowicz.
   Thanks to Fedorowicz for providing this review copy.