Ritter von Krauss

Ritter von Krauss is the pen name of a former German army officer who was the author of a large number of novels based on his experiences as a tank man in the first and second world wars. There are at least 40 surviving von Krauss novels in manuscript form all of which were written between 1954 and 1968 during the time when the author lived in Argentina .
THE LEGAL ISSUES
As a result of extensive legal and contractual disputes involving the author’s family, the novels went unpublished until the first volume "Tiger Battalion" finally appeared in 2010 following the death of the last of von Krauss’ children. In legal terms this was the condition precedent event which finally paved the way for publication. The film "Twilight Of The Gods" which was based on von Krauss’ experiences in Normandy also appeared in 2011 with the author properly credited for the first time .
The main barrier to publication during the author’s life time was a legal challenge by the author’s estranged children based on the legitimate fear that the family might be identified and associated with von Krauss who was active in the campaign to restore pension and other legal rights to Waffen SS veterans. The publishing contracts contain strong non-disclosure clauses preventing the publishers from identifying the author. The von Krauss novels in manuscript form all were written between 1954 and 1968 during the time when the author lived in Argentina .
During the 1990’s during the negotiations for the sale of the rights to the novels the manuscripts and the supporting documentation as part of a legal due diligence exercise were studied and approved by Professor John Erickson author of "The Road To Stalingrad" and "The Road To Berlin" . Professor Erickson confirmed the authenticity of the manuscripts allowing the sale to proceed with the stipulation that the author could not be identified and that no publication could take place during the lifetime of any of the author’s children.
THE GREAT WAR
Originally von Krauss served in the great war where he was briefly part of the unit which drove the A7V, the first of German tanks, into battle . During the early years of the war von Krauss served as a motorcyle despatch rider and was an associate of Kurt Ludecke who was later to emerge as a member of Hitler’s inner circle .
THE 1920’s
From an aristocratic family von Krauss suffered the humiliation of being reduced to poverty in the 1920’s when hyper inflation wiped out the fortunes of both von Krauss personally and the entire family. Following the war von Krauss is known to have served in the Freikorps and to have spent time in Russia working on tank development . It is thought that his failure to find a place in the 100,000 man army of the Weimar Republic was the spur which led to his joining the Nazi party . It is known that von Krauss spent time in the SA where he knew Ernst Röhm as a result of an introduction by Ludecke. Both Ludecke and Röhm appear in fictionalised form in the von Krauss novel "Freikorps!"
POLITICAL VIEWS
As a result of his experiences in the hungry twenties von Krauss had become a committed socialist and undoubtedly harboured life long nationalist aspirations . He was well known as a strong supporter of the Grossdeutschland vision which led to the creation of The Third Reich. He was therefore an obvious and easy convert to National Socialism . However von Krauss was not an anti-semite and his novels display no trace of this aspect of national socialist policy. In common with Ludecke and many others von Krauss appears to assumed that the anti-semitic aspects of the party manifesto were a side show to the main event which was the unification of the German speaking peoples into a socialist state.
In the 1920’s Von Krauss came to a breach with Ludecke when a number of business ventures designed to revive the von Krauss family fortunes also came to grief leaving von Krauss penniless. It was this event which drove von Krauss to seek employment by joining the fledgling SS although he was initially highly disparaging describing himself as nothing more than “a glorified advertising sales man. “
In 1933 von Krauss joined Hitler’s regiment of body guards which later became the 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. It is known that von Krauss served throughout the war initially as an armoured car commander and later as a Tiger tank commander.
In 1945 von Krauss escaped capture by the Russians and also slipped out of a Britsh POW camp . As a result he was never officially de-nazified. Lacking the appropriate papers he was and unable to work in Germany and he began a game of cat and mouse with the German authorities which saw him serve briefly in the ranks of The French Foreign Legion from which he was invalided out suffering from malaria; an illness from which he ever fully recovered.

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