Author: Prit Buttar
Osprey Publishing
Hard Back | ISBN: 978-1-84908-190-0
Review by Bill Curtis
Our thanks to Osprey Publishing for supplying our review copy. Get this good reference book here now at: www.ospreypublishing.com
Initial assessment
Osprey have released this book in paperback (2012) which was first published in 2019and contains 482 pages with 32 accompanying black and white photograph with captions and 14 maps also in Black and white.
“We have never seen so clearly the law of war: you or me”, so says Helli Hegen who was an eye witness to the horrors of this time.
In September 1944, the Soviet Army poured into captured German territory: Prussia. Massively outnumbered by the human wave of the Red Army, the Wehrmacht battled on, pitching hundred of thousands of soldiers and the hapless civilians caught in their crossfire into a fight to the death that would shape the outcome of the war and the future of Europe. These words are quoted from the back cover of the book.
Those few sentences say in a few words a brief outline of the months of fighting endured by all who were there, from the German Lander who tried to hold back the Red Hordes, the soviet soldiers of which a lot were ill trained to undertake these battles and the civilian population who were betrayed by their own leadership by keeping them in their homes until it was too late to organise a proper evacuation with many having to walk long distances in sub zero conditions while the Nazi Party Officials (Golden Pheasants) were the first to leave.
The Author has done a splendid job with this work as it is well written, researched and covers this area and time frame in detail. The photographs are clear and show a variety of personalities, combatants, uniforms, vehicles, ships and planes of which some are new to me.
This is a great reference book for the detailed account of the struggle for Prussia with first hand accounts, combat tactics of both sides and coupled with the maps and photographs makes for a volume which will be of interest to modellers and historians alike.
My personal view is that Osprey Publishing books, which I have always liked, have taken another leap forward with this volume and I hope for more similar titles in the future.
Very Highly Recommended
Bill C.