Now available in paperback, this book tells the detailed and
engrossing account of the fighting in Ukraine in 1944, making use of the
extensive memoirs of German and Russian soldiers involved in the
fighting, as well as partisans behind the German lines, to bring the
story to life.
'The Reckoning* is vivid history, the tragic Eastern Front brought to
life through the widest range of Russian and German sources I've ever
read. Bravo.'** - Peter Caddick-Adams, author and broadcaster
By the end of 1944 the Red Army was poised on the very frontiers of the
Third Reich. How had the once unstoppable, mighty Wehrmacht faltered so
disastrously? Certainly it had suffered defeats before, in particular
the vast catastrophe of Stalingrad, but it was in 1944 that the war was
ultimately lost. It was no longer a case of if but rather when the Red
Army would be at the gates of Berlin.
Prit Buttar retraces the ebb and flow of the various battles and
campaigns fought throughout the Ukraine and Romania in 1944. January and
February saw Army Group South encircled in the Korsun Pocket. Although
many of the encircled troops did escape, in part due to Soviet
intelligence and command failures, the Red Army would endeavor to not
make the same mistakes again. Indeed, in the coming months the Red Army
would demonstrate an ability to learn and improve, reinventing itself as
a war-winning machine, demonstrated clearly in its success in the
Iasi-Kishinev operation.
The view of the Red Army as a huge, unskilled horde that rolled over
everything in its path is just one myth that The Reckoning reassess.
Like all myths, they contain many truths, but also a great many
distortions, all of which are skilfully unpicked and analyzed in this
powerful retelling of 1944 on the Eastern Front.
