Following on from the author’s previous book on Operation Bagration, this volume takes in the wide ranging fighting between the Red Army and the increasingly desperate German Army as the Soviet Forces strove to take the battle deep into Germany. The nature of the fighting on the Eastern Front is again laid bare. All war is violent and often indiscriminate, but the gratuitous violence dispensed by German forces earlier in the war is noted by the author as a motivating force driving the Soviet forces forward. The appreciation of how the tables had turned is also noted by Prit Buttar as a factor in stiffening the resistance of the German forces, since defeat could only mean catastrophe, given the nature of the treatment of the populations in those countries on the Eastern front which had been occupied by Germany.

A feature noted by others covering this phase of the war is well described - the increasingly fantasy world in which Hitler and his true believers operated. Frequently cities were left to operate as ‘fortresses’ once the first echelon Soviet troops had passed in order to tie down Soviet troops until a relief operation could be mounted, when the military reality was clear - the remorseless advance of the Soviet forces could at best be delayed, not stopped.

The operations in the different theatres of operations in the Second World War have been covered extensively, and warfare on the Eastern Front is no exception. However, Prit Buttar has made a useful contribution, with a judicious use of first hand accounts and the helpful inclusion of post war research which has challenged some of the earlier understanding of this particularly barbaric phase of the Second World War. He notes, in particular, the self-serving memoirs of many senior officers, including Guderian, and the importance of comparing contemporaneous records of units engaged in the fighting with the later accounts published by Generals. He also rejects the suggestion from some German Army generals that the particularly shocking treatment of civilians, particularly but not exclusively Jews, was only carried out by SS forces, stressing that regular army units were also involved.

This book, in which the detail is impressive and the scholarship evident, deserves to be widely read. One tip from this reviewer would be to have a decent scale map handy in order to make sense of the complex movements of forces and battles described. Helpfully, the author gives current names of key locations which are initially described by reference to the names used at the time. This is particularly relevant where former German towns and cities are in present day Poland.

Strongly recommended.