I had always been interested in the Panzer formations since I was a young child, building scale models and reading war comics, and was familiar with the mechanics and capabilities of the Tiger I long before I was even able to drive. These early years had familiarised me with the major battles, with most of my time spent reading about the leading characters I encountered in books and films: Rommel, Montgomery, Dietrich, Patton, von Rundstedt and Bittrich to name but half a dozen.
I already had a fair few books on the Waffen-SS in the late 1980s – the first being Bruce Quarrie’s seminal door-opener Hitler’s Samurai: Waffen-SS in Action – and Michael Wittmann was one of many names mentioned, almost in passing.
I actually “discovered” the Tiger commander in the early 1990s, more by chance than anything else. I had been on a work experience summer at the London Borough of Harrow at the time, and my manager, knowing that I was interested in this specific area of the history of the Second World War, brought me a magazine with an article on Wittmann. The connection: the illustrator was her husband, Paul Hannon.
From there, a seed was planted, and my interest grew.
The idea of this site was born in late 1999, when I built a small experimental, biographical site that included the story of Michael Wittmann following my first visit to Villers-Bocage and La Cambe during that late summer.
I then made the decision to create a dedicated website, which was rolled out sometime the following year.
From there, things developed rapidly. I already had a few books on the subject including Patrick Agte’s encyclopaedic Michael Wittmann and the Tiger Commanders of the Leibstandarte, and it was the Internet that fuelled on ongoing search for further information. By the early 2000s the site had been recognised by other interested parties, and after launching an associated online bulletin board I was able to connect with others who were not just interested, but able to offer new information and insights, with the main focal point being the assault on Villers-Bocage on 13th June 1944.
Given my sources right at the beginning of the project – Agte’s book, Quarrie’s more general history and a couple of vintage copies of Landser and Signal – I will admit that the earlier versions of the site were arguably hagiographic. I have always maintained that many who fought in the Waffen-SS deserved a fair hearing, and this was indeed one of my angles, but it was never my intention to promote Michael Wittmann as some deity sitting in some mythical machine destroying everything in his wake. He was human, and the Tiger I was a powerful yet flawed machine.
By the middle of the 2000s, the site had a considerably wide audience, and was arguably the only online biography of its type on one of Germany’s premier Panzer aces. Michael Wittmann may not have been the most successful tank ace during the Second World War – both Otto Carius and Kurt Knispel would’ve had something to say about that – but he was certainly the most well-known. In June 2004 I was interviewed by the admittedly right-leaning National-Zeitung after I had criticised the then federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, a feature piece that also made the front page of the paper. Controversial though it may have been, I saw this as valuable recognition of my work.
The site’s growing popularity led to my being contacted in 2006 by Unimax, the Hong Kong-based manufacturer of the highly detailed, precision-built Forces of Valor models. Their request was simple: in return for their using my write-up on the story of Wittmann’s attack on Villers-Bocage, they would supply me with one of these beautiful 1/16 scale metal beasts, the Tiger I with turret number “222”, of which only two thousand were manufactured. I received number 1044.
This was quickly followed by another Tiger I project, this time focussing on Wittmann’s final battle outside Cintheaux on 8th August 1944. Just 1800 1/16 scale models of Tiger “007” were produced, of which I received number 742. These are not ordinary models; only a handful of FoV 1/16 creations were released, and they are now prized collectors items. Of course, every one of them comes with a guidebook that traces itself back to the early days of panzerace.net.
My only regret is that the stories I wrote back then have since been reviewed and revised many times over, resulting in what you can read here today – but that’s the nature of ongoing research and development, of course. It is hard to imagine that these fantastic pieces are now almost two decades old.
I have often toyed with the idea of turning the contents of this website into a book, and this is something I may still end up doing. However, in 2026 I believe that there are more than enough books out there, including a number specifically on Michael Wittmann and Villers-Bocage. I have assisted with many other projects for television documentaries, magazines and partworks, and this is enough for me. From the beginning, my mission has never been about making money, but continuing to live a quiet life, putting a small piece of time aside for sharing the story of Michael Wittmann in the best way I could.
Naturally, with all of the positives there have been some inevitable negatives. Perhaps the most noteworthy was an article in the Daily Mail in 2009, where it was suggested that a specially-designed Wittmann t-shirt I had sold on the site – itself now something of an out-of-production limited edition – was being worn by armies of malcontents swanning around the Normandy beaches. This, and other tall tales, are debunked here.
The site carried on quietly through the following decade, with incremental updates, and a Facebook group was created. Sadly, I had to take this down back in 2024 after finally deciding that continually removing neo-Nazi trolls and antagonistic communist malcontents posting contrarian nonsense was not going to be my day job. I also didn’t want to be banned from the platform on account of some random moron. This, I suppose, is why we cannot have nice things.
Then, sometime in 2025, the website itself was hacked, resulting in a lot of the information being lost. Frustratingly, my initial backup plan failed, but rather than jump straight back into the fray I decided to let things rest and cool off a bit, not knowing whether I would even revive the site.
For the best part of two years, the homepage was a “site not found” error message, until, almost on a whim, I decided to carefully retrieve a lot of the work via the Waybackwhen machine. From there, I was able to surgically reconstruct the site piece by piece. So here we are today, complete with a new makeover.
I am acutely aware that not everything is perfect, and that there will be some who disagree with some of my positions and interpretations. With the last of the veterans of the Second World War now no longer with us, it is our duty to keep these stories alive so that they can continue to be discovered, discussed and debated. This is my small contribution.