I'm almost done reading Panzer Commander, by Colonel Hans Von Luck.
http://www.amazon.com/Panzer-Commander-Memoirs-Colonel-Hans/dp/0440208025/ref=pd_sim_b_img_11
Its one of the best books I have ever read, the good Colonel managed through fate to get himself in every theatre of war at the most important time. He was a vetren of:
The Polish campaign, the French, Operation Barbarossa, the North African theatre, and Normandy. He was present during many important battles including the drive to the coast in 1940, the battle of Moscow in 1941, El Alamein, and D day. Not only that he was a close friend of Rommel; Jodl, Kesselrin, and Guderian are some notables that show up throughout the book.
You can tell he is cut from the same cloth as Guderian, he is an old world Prussian solider and an aristocrat, his matter of fact style is very similer to Guderian. However Guderian because of his rank deals largely with the very macro, and writes in a very dry tone. Colonel Luck was on the front lines as a middle grade officer, he writes from a different perspective. He was also a very well traveled metropolitan person before the war. He makes it quite clear throughout the book how pointless he feels the whole war is. He makes comments again and again as he faces off against British and French units about how he new the officers and was drinking and hanging out with them only months before. His hatred of the Nazi party and Goebbels is never far from the surface, he really hates Goebbels and takes stabs at him whenever possible.
Its really interesting because away from the front he spends a lot of time in Paris hanging out with his friends from before the war who he suspects are in the resistence. The Gestapo arrests one but he gets him out. He spends his off duty time listening to illegal American Jazz, drinking, and driving his beloved Mercedes Cab. He drives that Mercedes from Moscow to Paris, its the only way he travels!
He also hates the Nazi government officials who he views as leaches ruining France. He actualy called the German MP's on a party of them once and had them thrown out of a French bar.
But on the front he is dead serious, if someone screws up they are gone. He threatens a few with death. When the allies were trying to break out of Normandy they made a huge hole in his lines that he was trying to plug. He found a Luftwaffe AA crew with four 88's that was it. The Captain in charge said the tanks are your problem, we only shoot at planes. With that he drew his P38 pointed it at the Captain and said "you can either die here or get yourself a medal", the Captain decided he wanted a medal and destroyed 40+ tanks with those guns, buying enough time to save there position. I can see why Rommel wanted him, he was very cool and professional when under fire. He would do whatever was needed to preform his duty.
Its also very interesting hearing his perspective on the allies. He knew the war was lost when he first engaged the Americans in North Africa. He said that when he saw how they were equiped and with the massive ammo dumps he new it was lost. He said the American equipment was first rate, and against the Panzer 4 the Sherman was actualy the better! What was also interesting was his respect for the American artillery, which he says again and again, in North African and France. They were able to direct very affective fire and stop his attacts. Combined with our fighter support they just couldn't operate. He also compares the Americans to the British, he said the British were really gentleman about the whole thing and there are some really good stories about this in the book. But the Americans were very flexable and as a result much more dangerious. If the Brit's were ordered to advance to point X they would do so, and wouldn't move 1ft farther even if they had broken through. This gave him a lot of chances to fix problem areas. However the Americans would jump at the slightest chance and exploit it fully, he found them to be very flexable. General Pattons advance across France was a good example of this, his wild drives pretty much destroyed them.
Anyone who is into WW2 and wants to see how things were on the other side should read this book. Its one of the best accounts I have read so far. I am as always amazed by the quality of the Wermarch, and of the German officer core.