Friedrich Von Mellenthin - Later Life

Later Life

Von Mellenthin spent 2½ years in prison, during which time he talked with many of his fellow inmates about the events of the war, and took notes. One of the non-political officers, he professed ignorance of Nazi activities, writing that "not until we were behind barbed wire did we learn of the misdeeds of the Supreme Authority, deeds which shook us to the core and made our cheeks burn with shame" (Panzer Battles, ch. 23).

After his release, he emigrated with his family to South Africa. His book Panzerschlachten, translated into English as Panzer Battles, documents all the campaigns he participated in with substantial detail. He later became director of Lufthansa in South Africa, and died in Johannesburg.

The reliability of Panzer Battles has been called into question over the years. Critics point out that Major-General von Mellenthin tends to downplay German failures while focusing exclusively on successes, while some of his observations on the positive and negative qualities of the Russian soldier are little more than crude overgeneralisations. However, the casualty statistics of the Eastern war tend to lend credence to many of the claims made by the former general as to the tactical superiority of the German army during the period 1939–1944, especially over its Soviet counterpart.

Panzer Battles is presently included in the libraries of the premier military academies in the world: Sandhurst (Britain), West Point (America), and Frunze (Russia), and 2006 is the 50th anniversary of its original publishing date.