An account of the final year of fighting in Ukraine during World War II, making use of the extensive memoirs of German and Russian soldiers, as well as partisans behind the German lines.
From critically acclaimed Eastern Front expert Prit Buttar, The Reckoning is the third and final part of an epic trilogy covering the bitter course of World War II in Ukraine. Following on from Retribution, in which, under constant pressure from the advancing Soviets, the German Army retreated beyond the Dnepr, The Reckoning sees the Germans pushed back further across the Bug and Dniester and onwards towards final defeat. Large numbers of German troops were encircled in the Cherkassy Pocket, and to a lesser extent in the Kamanets-Podolsk and Brody pockets, while German forces in the Crimea were isolated and ultimately destroyed. The casualties suffered by the German forces were immense, forcing the diversion of an increasing proportion of the diminishing strength of the Wehrmacht to the region; this in turn left almost no reserves elsewhere and thus greatly facilitated the devastating blow that fell upon the German Army Group Centre in the summer of 1944.
This book combines masterful narrative storytelling with expert analysis to reveal, in gripping detail, the full story of how the guns finally fell silent on the Eastern Front.
