In January 1944 the Red Army at last succeeded in putting to an end one
of the most dramatic sieges in the history of warfare, that of
Leningrad. The Soviet spearheads quickly expelled the Wehrmacht from the
vicinity of the city, but once they reached the prewar border with
Estonia, they were stopped dead in their tracks by a very determined
Axis resistance. There, at river Narva, Germans, Estonians, and Waffen
SS volunteers and conscripts from all over Europe stood firm for several
months against numerous Soviet violent attacks. By doing so, they were
able to cripple the ambitious military and political plans of Joseph
Stalin, and to effectively postpone the Soviet re-conquest of the Baltic
States for more than half a year.
Penned by a leading Bulgarian researcher, the book provides an expert
analysis of this lesser-known battle. A considerable number of German
and Soviet wartime documents were accessed, and this allowed the author
to tell the story from perspective of both sides. It also contains many
never-before-published photographs.