Detail:
The author describes his participation in the two main phases of Operation Barbarossa, namely the advance of the powerful German forces into the heart of Russia followed by their enforced 'Napoleonic' retreat after the battle of Stalingrad.

It portrays the gradual awakening in the mind of a young Hitler Youth 'educated' soldier of a Panzer Division to the truth of the criminal character of what he is involved in.

Having in mind that about 9 out of 10 German soldiers who died in WWII were killed in Russia, it throws some light on the largely unreported heroic sacrifices of Soviet soldiers and civilians often against seemingly hopeless odds, without which Europe might well have fallen to fascism.

It does not deal so much with grand strategies, tactics and military technicalities as with the human involvement of ordinary people from both sides having been caught up in that enormity of a tragedy, that epic struggle in Russia.

It throws light on the chasm which existed between officers and men in the sharply class-divided Wehrmacht with most of the top rank officers having been drawn from the old imperial aristocracy.