Claus Neuber was a young artillery lieutenant in the 18th Panzergrenadier Division of the German Fourth Army in the Soviet Union in June 1944 when he was caught up in Operation Bagration, the large-scale Red Army offensive that destroyed Army Group Centre and pushed the Germans back hundreds of miles into eastern Poland. After almost seventy days on the run behind Soviet lines he rejoined the German army. He recorded his experiences in a report written soon afterwards, then expanded his account after the war, but it was not published in Germany till 2014.