D-Day Tank Hunter Hans Hoeller

Hans Hoeller joined the war in 1941 and was trained as a tank hunter. After his first assignment to North Africa he returned to Germany for officer´s training. Once again, he deployed to the desert to take part in the last battles of the Wehrmacht in Tunisia. Badly wounded in close combat, he was lucky enough to be evacuated by plane – right in time to help rebuilding 21st Panzer Division in Northern France.

Hans recounts feverishly waiting for the Allied landing. As it finally came, he saw months of intense fighting, north of Caen, in the Falaise pocket and covering the Wehrmacht`s retreat to the east. Hans` war formally ended in late 1944, when he was taking prisoner and shipped to the USA. However, the war insight him rages on to this very day. He wrote this memoire to come to terms with that time. To give a name to all those soldiers who had died next to him, under his command, or even because of his actions. He hopes that never again shall our children and grandchildren face each other in the trenches – that the bloodshed remains in the past alone.