The most famous German "panzer ace", Michael Wittmann, is credited by Kurowski as having destroyed 60 tanks and nearly as many anti-tank guns in the course of a few days near Kiev in November 1943. According to historian Steven Zaloga, Wittman was credited with about 135 tanks destroyed – although 120 of those were made on the Eastern Front from a Tiger tank. After the war, Wittmann gained a cult status among admirers of the Wehrmacht, the Waffen-SS, and tank warfare. Kurowski's book also describes the actions of "panzer ace" Franz Bäke in the Cherkassy Pocket. In Kurowski's retelling, after fighting unit after unit of the Red Army, Bäke is able to establish a corridor to the trapped German forces, and then "wipes out" the attacking Soviets. In another of Kurowski's accounts, while attempting to relieve the German 6th Army encircled in Stalingrad, Bake destroys 32 enemy tanks in a single engagement.