I intend the book to end with the furthest point of the German drive on Moscow, which, I believe was when reconnaissance units of 2nd Panzer Group pentrated the outer suburbs and stood 17 miles from the Kremlin, within the range of long-range artillery.
I would greatly appreciate any and all information anyone can provide, particularly specific information about the activities and locations of 4th Panzer Div from June to December 41, as I am planning to write the novel along the lines of a daily record of the advance to Moscow.
I plan the key points of the book to be incidents such as :
the first meeting with a KV-1 or KV-2, and the immense difficulty in destroying these heavily-armoured beasts
witnessing activities of Einsatzgruppen and special police units while behind the lines recuperating
encounter with Jewish partisans from forests around Minsk
psychological horror of Soviet human-wave attacks
I plan this book to be more about the five characters in the panzer crew than about the war as a whole, but the accuracy of the descriptions of the war around them are important, as the events are key in how the five young Germans are changed by their experiences.I also plan to publish the novel chapter by chapter to a website, which will also contain much of my research, and the materials and notes I produce (such as character biographies) as a by-product of the research and writing process.
Currently, I have written the biographies of the five men, and have decided that they are all from different regions of Germany, is this accurate or were panzer divisions composed of men from the same region?
I intend to post regular queries to the forum as my work progresses, and I will post notices of when I upload new material to my website, which I will port the URL of shortly.
I would ideally like as many people to contribute their views and information to this project, as I would like it to be as accurate a study of the effects oof war on a small group of young men as possible, as I have discovered that other wartime novels such as the Sven Hassel and Leo Kessler series tend to be pulpy novels which gloss over the psychological aspects of war in favour of blood and guts storytelling.
Thankyou all in advance for your help.
Ian Greenhalgh