Winter on the Eastern Front

Hitler's shocking decision to invade the Soviet Union in June 1941 turned out to be the turning point of the entire Second World War.

After the initial victories, the Germans advanced as far as Moscow, but after the Russian counter-offensive at the turn of 1941 and 1942, the tide began to turn. The famous Russian winter, for which the army of Nazi Germany was not sufficiently prepared, undoubtedly played an important role. During the first winter on Russian soil, the Germans did not have the necessary equipment and resorted to improvisation.

In 1942, therefore, the German command compiled „ A manual for waging war in winter“, which was to provide soldiers with the necessary instructions on how to fight in harsh winter conditions in snow and frost, how to build shelter, how to deal with logistics.

The Methodist Germans eventually more or less coped with the climatic conditions, but even so they had to accept the fact that they had encountered a very resilient and numerically stronger opponent who was ultimately beyond their strength.

The indescribable conditions of wartime operations in winter conditions are vividly brought to life in this book through unique images from the collection of contemporary wartime photographs by Ian Baxter, a leading expert on 20th century German military history, German military technology and the history of the Second World War. The madness of war is sometimes best seen in seemingly unimportant details.