Albert Agathon Benary wrote lots of books. Indeed, if a person of the present-day persuasion asked me to characterize the literary career of this retired officer, I would describe him as ‘the Tom Clancy of the German Army of the 1930s’.
Like Mr. Clancy, Lieutenant Colonel Benary wrote both novels and descriptions of contemporary military life, units, and events. However, where the former aimed his fiction at adults, the latter wrote for what we have come to call the ‘young adult market’. For example, The Cossacks are Coming (Die Kosaken kommen) recounted the imagined adventures of two German boys during the Russian invasion of East Prussia in 1914 and Horst Wants to Join the Armed Forces (Horst will zur Reichswehr) told of tales of a lad who wished to become a soldier.
In 1936, Benary published Horst the Armored Rifleman (Horst der Panzerschütze), a novel in which the hero of the latter work fulfills his youthful dreams by joining, as an officer candidate, one of the motorized rifle (Schützen) regiments of an armored division. Soon after completion of recruit training, Horst and his fellow Fahnenjunker received a dressing down from the regimental commander.
The inspection of the recruits went well. The colonel praised both the appearance and the marching of the candidates. He also expressed satisfaction with their marksmanship and their classroom work. At the same time, he expressed great annoyance at the poor performance of the candidates in tests of technical knowledge.
Do not think, My Young Gentlemen, that technology is a secondary matters for us motorized troops. They provide the foundation of our tactics.
If, as future officers, you fail to understand the equipment entrusted to you, whether weapon or vehicle, down to the last detail, you will never understand the things they are able to do, and, as a result you will, as a tactician, remain dependent upon the technician.
Therefore, Gentlemen, in the future, please pay close attention in the classes given by the sergeant in charge of the motor pool (Schirrmeister), even when they strike you as boring. And, in the evening, when you return to your squad bays, stick your noses in your manuals.
In four weeks, I will evaluate your progress.Source
Albert Benary Horst der Panzerschütze (Berlin: Franz Schneider, 1936)
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