RED STAR AT WAR; & MARCHING FROM DEFEAT

◗ Colin Turbett; and Claus Neuber

◗ Pen and Sword (2020)

◗ £19.99 each

◗ 242 and 202 pages (hardback)

◗ ISBN:9781526763280 and 9781526704269

◗ pen-and-sword.co.uk

Two unusual and moving accounts of the Eastern Front in WWII.

‘Red Star’ describes military and civilian life from the Soviet viewpoint, with a mixture of a potted history of the main offensives, chapters on key aspects of the war (food, morale, training, reward and punishment, etc), and collections of individual stories. It is about ordinary people caught up in a horrific war – 25 million Soviet dead, 2.8 million permanently disabled, and all within a bleak past (the purges of the 1930s) and a bleak future: veterans faced hardship, indifference and downright distrust for many years after 1945.

‘Marching From Defeat’ is the diary of a young German officer in the Soviet Operation Bagration offensive in June 1944. Initially‘ lucky’ in avoiding a direct Soviet main assault, his division became encircled and progressively disintegrated. He describes the transition from a wellordered life in a cosy frontline bunker, to the initial retreat with high hopes, to the increasing horror of partisan ambushes, devastating air strikes, and the loss of comrades and valuable equipment. He was one of the very few to regain German lines.