Insights into the history of a propaganda unit

Volume I - Formation and the Western Campaign of 1940

The topic of propaganda in the Third Reich continues to play a significant role in contemporary discussions. Interestingly, no military historian has yet dedicated an in-depth study to this subject. There are only detailed treatises on the topic of anti-Semitic incitement and propaganda. But what did the propaganda look like for the troops and the German population? What were the guidelines for war correspondents, and how much of that was implemented? Who censored the results, and what was the cooperation like between the Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht and the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda? Who were the war correspondents, and how involved were they in the final products shown in cinemas and newspapers? What happened when what was written, filmed, or photographed didn’t meet the desired expectations? Were there any guidelines at all? Were combat scenes staged? How risky was the job of a war correspondent, and where did the men find the motivation to continually risk their lives for photos and reports? This book addresses all of these questions and reveals that many of the claims made by post-war authors about the PK unit are completely unfounded.

The first part of the book provides an introduction to the PK and addresses many questions about propaganda that have never been asked before. The second part, which comprises about 80% of the volume, describes the deployment of the Propaganda Company 666 in the Western Campaign. The correspondents of the company were assigned to the 12th Army and thus worked with the infantry divisions of the III Army Corps and Guderian's Panzer Corps. The book describes the battles of the divisions chronologically, incorporating photographs and reports from the war correspondents of PK 666. The reader follows Guderian's advance through the Ardennes, participates in the battles for Sedan and the Maas crossing, and advances with the Panzer divisions through Stonne, St. Quentin, Peronne, Abbeville, and Montreuil towards Boulogne and Calais on the English Channel. Finally, the battles for the heavily defended fortresses in these two port cities are depicted.

Afterward, the tanks march south, and together with the infantry divisions, they advance through the Aisne toward the Swiss border. The reader witnesses the battles along the Aisne, around Rethel, in Champagne, near Chalons, along the Rhein-Marne Canal, at St. Dizier, Chaumont, Langres, and Besancon. The battles of all the involved divisions are narrated using original documents, complemented by photographs and reports from the men of PK 666. A book like this has never been published before. The book names all the war correspondents of PK 666 and provides brief biographies of the men. Many of them later appeared in the public eye in completely different roles after the war. This book is the first concrete documentation of the history of a propaganda company.

Delivery approximately at beginning of March!

The Story of Tank Officer Joachim Senholdt

Panzer-Aufklärungs-Abteilung 8 – Panzer Regiment 204 – I./Pz.Rgt. “Brandenburg”

In these times of misinformation of all kinds, the number of intentionally altered or completely falsified contemporary historical reports, diaries and documentations is increasing drastically. Hardly recognisable to the layperson, this is how history is falsified. In the face of such "fake sources", the search for historical treatises based on reliable and verifiable sources is becoming increasingly difficult. But of course there are still some serious publications.
In preparing this book, we carefully evaluated the extensive original sources left by the tank soldier Joachim Senholdt, who was a Gefreiter (private) at the beginning of the war and experienced the end of the Third Reich as an Oberleutnant (first lieutenant) in 1945. This authentic material was made available by his son and is rare on account of its completeness. Within the framework of the documentation, it is possible to follow events from the invasion of the Sudetenland at the end of 1938 to the end of the war in the Halbe Pocket in April 1945 and Senholdt’s subsequent escape to the west. It becomes unmistakably clear how the war became more and more brutal as it progressed, claiming more and more victims and becoming increasingly hopeless. As a reader, you will follow Joachim Senholdt as he marches into the Sudetenland, takes part in the attack on Poland, rolls across the Belgian border in the Ardennes on 10 May 1940, and as a member of a panzer regiment fights the Soviets in the desolate, flat steppe landscape of the Kerch Peninsula. You will experience the German summer offensive in the southern sector of the Eastern Front in 1942, the Soviet breakthrough in December 1942 which led to the encirclement of Stalingrad, and the destruction of Senholdt’s division in the winter of 1942-43.

In the end, Senholdt commanded the assault gun company of I./Panzer-Regiment “Brandenburg" on the Oder Front and in the Halbe Pocket in April 1945. The story of his weeks-long escape from the pocket to the west, constantly fleeing the Soviets, his life in danger, form the last part of the book.

It is a unique documentary that allows the reader to feel the events of that time first hand.

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A Medical Officer in the Campaign against Russia

 First half of the book

Text completly german/english

How did the soldiers of the Wehrmacht really experience the attack on the Soviet Union and the battles that followed? Few of the books on the subject of the war in Russia provide an honest answer. This book (two volumes) delivers a real view of events. Assistenzsarzt Dr. Türk’s unabbreviated diary entries from the year 1941, supplemented by documentary supporting text, 40 color maps, and a large number of his color slides represent a unique documentation. It provides an exemplary and genuine view, unaffected by postwar influences or a selective choice of materials, of how many soldiers of the Wehrmacht perceived the first half year of the campaign in the east.

Take part in the attack near Brest-Litovsk, experience the fierce fighting at the Beresina and the Dniepr, march south with the division to close the Kiev pocket, and prepare for the assault on Moscow. Then follows the advance on Orel, and the arrival of the snow and cold. You stand with the soldiers in the icy trenches in front of Tula and witness the house-to-house fighting in the mining town of Bolokhovka. One cannot escape Dr. Türk’s haunting diary entries. They do not spare the reader, instead they provide extraordinary insights and allow the reader to feel the events as they were.

Thew reworked book will be is published in two volumes with much more pages and photos.

Here one can read what father and grandfather experienced in the Russian campaign but never spoke of at home. This book will hopefully spur those born later, those who were spared this inferno, to reflect, for the majority of the frontline soldiers in Russia did not go voluntarily into this struggle.

The book is published in german / english!

The reworked book "To The Gates of Moscow with the 3rd Panzer" will be available in two volumes at mid July. The reprint has over 40 new pages and over 80 new photos.

A Medical Officer in the Campaign against Russia

Second half of the book

Text completly german/english

And her former history as I. Abteilung Panzer-Regiment 26

The story of the “Brandenburg” Panther Battalion and its prior history as I Battalion of Panzer-Regiment 26 played out against the background of the everywhere collapsing fronts of the final year and a half of the war. The reader takes part in the fighting withdrawals in the vast steppe landscapes of southern Russia and Rumania and the battles on the East Prussian border and in the Baltic States. He is encircled with the battalion in the Memel bridgehead in East Prussia in late 1944 and experiences the relief attempt towards Budapest in late 1944 - early 1945. Finally, in February 1945, follows the transfer of the renamed battalion to the Oder Front near Küstrin, where the Panthers were one of the last panzer battalions opposing the Russian drive on Berlin. The descriptions involve the reader, not only in the battalion’s actions, but as well in the overall events at the Oder in the final weeks of the war. He directly experiences the collapse of the entire Oder front, the retreat and destruction in the Halbe Pocket. The descriptions are so vivid and powerful that one cannot escape the drama of the events. Whoever wants to understand what happened back then can take a journey through time with this book.

Based on ten years of research, this is a book that rises above the many other books about panzer units and the final months of the war. More than 200 action photographs from every front, almost all of them previously unseen, and 27 color maps supplement the text.

This is a unique documentation which, once again, took advantage of the opportunity to allow the last eyewitnesses to speak.

The book is published in german / english!

Again available!

This book is the first in a series of publications entitled Photographs by Soldiers that will be produced by our company. Each will be based on photographs taken by individual participants in the war, accompanied as required by more or less extensive text. The photos, along with surviving diary entries or letters, will be set against the overall framework of events. Supplementary photographic material will be used sparingly and only when there are gaps that must be filled to assure overall continuity. The series is intended to allow the reader to understand the war from the subjective point of view of the individual soldier. When necessary, letters and diary entries will be supplemented by footnotes to explain phraseology or concepts from the period.

Volume 1 in the series focuses on Hans Becker. Attached to the headquarters staff of the 8th Panzer Regiment in Africa in 1942-43, he extensively photographed frontline operations there. After he was wounded, he was flown home, and after recovering from his wounds, in autumn 1943 he joined the 508th Heavy Panzer Battalion during its formation. Soon afterwards, the battalion commander tasked him with “recording the battalion’s path photographically, to illustrate the war diary”.
Hans Becker therefore also photographed the Tiger unit’s actions in Italy in 1944-45, both in black-and-white and color.

Hans Becker’s photographs are well above average, both in terms of subject selection and quality. Happily his diaries and letters to his wife were also made available to the author. The result is an impressive account of operations by two panzer units from the point of view of a member of the headquarters staff, who in part had insight into decisions. Hans Becker not only captured images of tanks, but also other elements of the two units in action and neighboring units, as well as the theaters of war and life behind the front. The book is thus a general photo book covering the fighting in North Africa and Italy from 1942 to 1945.

For all those with an interest in history, it is a stroke of luck that Hans Becker’s outstanding photographs have found the light of day in this way, almost 70 years after the end of the war.

The book is published in german / english!

Reprint available in mid-April 2024!

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