Franz Kurowski

Franz Kurowski (November 17, 1923 − May 28, 2011) was a German author of fiction and non-fiction who specialised in World War II topics. He is best known for producing apologist, negationist and semi-fictional works on the history of the war, including the popular English-language series Panzer Aces and Infantry Aces.

Kurowski's first publications appeared during the Nazi era; from 1958 until his death he worked as a freelance writer. He wrote 400 books for children and adults, under his own name and various pseudonyms. Kurowski wrote, among other things, for the weekly pulp war stories series Der Landser.

Kurowski produced numerous accounts featuring the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS, providing laudatory and non-peer reviewed wartime chronicles of military units and highly decorated personnel. Historians have dismissed his works, pointing out that Kurowski mixed fact and fiction and advances the discredited concept of Nur-Soldat ("merely soldier"). Rather than providing an authentic representation of the war experience, his works emphasized heroics and convey a distorted image of the German armed forces in World War II. Critics have been dismissive of Kurowski, describing him as a "hackwriter" and his works as Landser-pulp ("soldier-pulp") and "laudatory texts", that provide a "mix of fact and fancy".

Kurowski's books have strong denialist tendencies; he held onto Nazi propaganda's military and civilian statistics and presented history devoid of any crimes by the Wehrmacht or the Waffen-SS. A number of his books have been published by far-right publishing houses such as the Türmer Verlag, the Arndt Verlag, and the Pour le Mérite Verlag.

Education and career

Born on 17 November 1923, Kurowski grew up in Dortmund and, after primary school, trained as a turner.