A harrowing account of war on the Russian front as seen through the eyes of an ordinary German soldier. Sajer went through some of the worst fighting of the Second World War around Kharkhov, Voronezh and the Drieper River and then, towards the end of the war, on the Baltic coast in the final battles for Mewel and Danzig. Posted to the elite Grosse Deutschland Division in 1943, he tells of its savage training system where sadistic instructors shot down those who failed to shape up; vicions combat against Russian partisans; and the carriage of battles against a desperate but merciless Red Army with its mind-numbing artillery attacks and endless waves of infantry and tanks. An all too realistic account of a violent and remorseless world that destroyed all hope and idealism and where only brute survival counted. (Kirkus UK)