This is a harrowing description of Russia's revenge on the German people during their advance through eastern Germany in the final months of the War. Thorwald interviewed many of the soldiers and civilians who lived through those months. He jumps from the sometimes almost unreadable descriptions of the atrocities committed by the Russian troops to the efforts of the German generals to save the lives of their troops & the trapped civilians by strategic withdrawals which Hitler & his cronies refused to allow. ( )