Volume VIII in the magisterial Germany and the Second World War series, dealing with one of the most eventful phases of World War Two - the battles on the eastern front in 1943 and 1944 - which have been largely forgotten by western historians, but which involved enormous Wehrmacht losses and some of the biggest land battles in world history. Each of the authors has mastered not only the vast secondary material on the subject matter, but also on the voluminous archival sources available. Indeed, it is rare that a scholarly enterprise of such vast scope makes such effective use of primary sources, and all of the authors are to be commended for their efforts. In short, like the other volumes in the series, volume 8 makes an invaluable contribution to the historiography of WW II in Europe....Essential.