This is a well researched book, with good material from both sides. In general the work focuses on the higher and medium levels of command, and the tactics that were used by both sides.

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History of War

As Featured In

WWII History, August 2022

For serious readers of military history in the English-speaking world, the telling of the story of the Great Patriotic War from a non-politicised Russian perspective is long overdue and books such as this will do much to fill this gap in the historiography. Recommended.

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Phil Curme

Featured in

Loopholes, Journal for the Pillbox Study Group - Number 81

By 1944, even the loyalist Nazis could see defeat as the most probable outcome, but fought on hard in the East to slow the Soviet advance. Excellent research, presentation and illustration of the final acts of WWII on the Eastern Front – Very Highly Recommended

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Firetrench

Alexey Isaev has produced an extremely informative work on a little known aspect of the war in the east. The detailed accounts of the ‘sieges’ and German attempts at relief shows an outstanding degree of painstaking research complimented by good editing and translation. This is a decidedly readable account of four cities that suffered a similar fate to Stalingrad and it is high time their story was told!

Martin Willoughby, Chairman of the Wessex Branch of the Western Front Association

It is unlikely that many historians or students of WWII will have heard of the German construction, on Hitler's orders, and defence of their fortresses in the Ukraine and Poland. Built to act as a defensive line to delay or thwart any Russian advance. They were constructed at major city road junctions to slow or stop any Russian advance which reminded this reviewer of the construction of Martello towers along the English coastline to deter Napoleon.
Such was German confidence in the role of these defences in WWII that vast resources were expended by the Germans in their building and subsequent defence - all to no avail. The Russians smashed them then by-passed them. In the latter stages of the war, the might and determination of the Russian military crushed these defence proving that German belief, and that of Hitler himself, in castle-like defences could still be effective in modern warfare - they were not, especially by the end of the war. As ever in modern warfare, the cities supposedly to be protected by these fortresses were similarly destroyed or severely damaged as the Russians advanced, in part due to the proximity of such forts to the cities themselves.
The account has many new accompanying photographs which show the full extent of these fortresses, and of their destruction by the Russians. Countless soldiers on both sides died in the Russian attacks on these forts and retrospectively, they show the cost in lives on both sides caused by of one of Hitler's many illogical wartime constructions.
A very well researched book which, thankfully, has enough maps to guide the reader along the path of the Russian advance to the fortresses.

Dr Adrian Greaves, The Anglo-Zulu War Historical Society