Schwere Panzerabteilung 503/FHH

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Jan-Hendrik
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Schwere Panzerabteilung 503/FHH

Post by Jan-Hendrik »

The new edition is out now!

http://www.panzer-archiv.de/content/medien.php?id=56

Not a simple reprint, but completly reworked, 688 Pages absolutly monumental!! Don't miss it!!

With the help of the Authors and many other Veterans of the unit the history of the Most important and most succeesfall Tiger unit is rewritten! 8-)

AMAzon

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Re: Schwere Panzerabteilung 503/FHH

Post by Marc Rikmenspoel »

Wow, this was a surprise, I'm glad to know some of those guys are still alive and healthy enough for work of this sort. And 50 euros seems quite reasonable for such a thick book.

The English edition of the first German edition can be found in chain bookstores all over the USA, thanks to Stackpole's large format paperback reprint of the Fedorowicz hardcover. I don't think this 2008 printing will be revised anytime soon, nor will Fedorowicz produce a new hardcover, when copies of the original hardcover are still available. So...maybe Fedorowicz can work with Rubbel again, and create an English PDF of the new material, which can be ordered as an e-book download. This would be even better if they could finally include Walter Scherf's accounts, which were delated (at his request) from the English edition.
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Re: Schwere Panzerabteilung 503/FHH

Post by sniper1shot »

Kind of lost me there....
Is there an English Edition? JJF produced it before this German Edition??

Why would he want to delete portions from the English edition??
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Re: Schwere Panzerabteilung 503/FHH

Post by phylo_roadking »

Why would he want to delete portions from the English edition??
great minds...! :wink:
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Re: Schwere Panzerabteilung 503/FHH

Post by Jan-Hendrik »

Because Scherf did not want them to be included....internal misunderstandings within the Traditionsverband :wink:

There was a selfproduced edition by the Kameradschaft (250 copies) in german language in 1990, huge like a telephone book, but the overall production, especially of the pics and maps, was, as to be expected, rather amateurish...

I don't know how much JFF shortended the orignal when publishing it in english (as the german german edition included an nearly 200 pages strong annex, containing personal diaries f.e.).

Now since 2006 work was in progress (by Flechsig, some folks of the Panzer-Archive and the Veterans) to do an "revised" german edition under professional "guidance", the effort is out know, the finel version is 2 times as thick as planned :shock: :D

Cheers

Jan-Hendrik

By the way, an revised and expanded version of Alfred Rubbel's memories will be published by Flechsig this year, too!
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Re: Schwere Panzerabteilung 503/FHH

Post by sniper1shot »

Thanks. Price will be high I am expecting.
I wonder just how many good German unit and personal biographies are out there waiting to be produced in English.
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Re: Schwere Panzerabteilung 503/FHH

Post by Jan-Hendrik »

I wonder just how many good German unit and personal biographies are out there waiting to be produced in English.
Just more than you could ever imagine :D :D

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Re: Schwere Panzerabteilung 503/FHH

Post by Marc Rikmenspoel »

sniper1shot wrote:Thanks. Price will be high I am expecting.
I wonder just how many good German unit and personal biographies are out there waiting to be produced in English.
What do you mean about "the price will be high?" The price for the Fedorowicz edition, published in 2000, is high, it still sells for $95US, even on Amazon. But the Stackpole paperback, from 2008, has all the text and most of the photos, and sells on Amazon for $19.77. Anyone who collects books on the subject ought to be able to afford that. And this new German version sells for $50 euros, which isn't expensive for such a large book.

My point above was that since the English hardcover and softcover editions are still in print and available, it's not likely that either Engliah language publisher would want to invest in producing a translation of the new edition. So hopefully there will be an e-book supplement made available, with the new material. Fedorowicz have already experimented with e-books by releasing the translation of Tieke's study of Panzerbrigade Westfalen in that format.

The material in the English edition was prepared under Alfred Rubbel's guidance, with the assistance of Franz-Wilhelm Lochmann and Richard Freiherr von Rosen. Robert Edwards did the actual translation of the material they prepared. Von Rosen became a high ranking Bundeswehr officer, and took part in many staff studies with British and American soldiers, so it makes sense he would want an English edition. Scherf's experience was less happy, as an officer in Panzerbrigade 150 he was tried along with Skorzeny after the war. My guess is that this soured him on being part of an English version.

There's plenty of interesting German material coming out in English these days. Haasler's Panzer Brigade 105 study is the sort of detailed study of an obscure topic that should get historians and armor afficiandos excited. Fedorowicz in particular have a bunch of titles that are on similarly obscure subjects, and are worth reading, such as Schadewitz's study of Panzer Brigade 150 (including Scherf), Husemann's history of the 4. SS-Polizei-Panzergrenadier Division (volume 2 comes out this week and covers fascinating late war campaigns), the veterans' history of schwere Panzer Abteilung 507, and Rebentisch's history of the 23. Panzer Division. The latter two are especially recommended to those who think there's too much Waffen-SS coverage in English (and FWIW, the English edition of the schwere Panzer Abteilung 503 book is very good too).
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Re: Schwere Panzerabteilung 503/FHH

Post by sniper1shot »

Thanks for the explanation. I can afford $20 for sure. Wasn't meaning the Stackpole books.
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Re: Schwere Panzerabteilung 503/FHH

Post by Richard Hargreaves »

sniper1shot wrote:I wonder just how many good German unit and personal biographies are out there waiting to be produced in English.
Well I have a good couple of hundred... :shock:

You could always bite the bullet like I did and learn German. It's a damn sight easier than many foreign tongues. I still can't speak it, mind you, only read it. I looked at the waitress blankly in a restaurant in Freiburg when she asked if I was finished with my main course. Mind you, I bet she didn't know what a Kochgeschirr was. :D
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Re: Schwere Panzerabteilung 503/FHH

Post by Jan-Hendrik »

3,7 Kg, XXL-Format, hundreds of pictures, many of them never published before! 8)

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Re: Schwere Panzerabteilung 503/FHH

Post by Jan-Hendrik »

All interested may look on this page to take a look about which size we are talking here :D

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Re: Schwere Panzerabteilung 503/FHH

Post by Richard Hargreaves »

:shock: :shock: :shock:

That's enormous. If only I had the money (and the exchange rate wasn't so crappy). :(
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Re: Schwere Panzerabteilung 503/FHH

Post by richard hedrick »

Jan-Hendrik thanks for keeping us posted on interesting books being printed in Germany, if it were not for your posts some of us would not know what new books are available.

I did a little shopping around and for those in the States i found the best price with the sellers on Amazon.co.uk (there are several similarly priced) for a total of $79.41 with air mail shipping. Amazon.de was about $120 with comparable shipping, i guess it's the exchange rate and the extra distance.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listin ... dition=new

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Re: Schwere Panzerabteilung 503/FHH

Post by Jan-Hendrik »

Dear Richard, as I know 3/4 of the Authors personally it is an honour for me to point the interested readers towards this bible of Tiger unit histories 8)

:beer:

Jan-Hendrik
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