This sweeping saga takes us from the banks of the River Oder as the Red Army begins it relentless drive towards the still beating heart of the Third Reich: Berlin. Only the Seelow Heights stood between the Soviet forces and the capital. Over the course of three days in May 1945 almost one million Soviet troops would attack these final entrenched positions. Once these defences were breached it was guaranteed that a bitter street-by-street battle would take place in the city itself between a vengeful Red Army and desperate, fanatical Nazis until final capitulation. Using vivid first-hand accounts, Prit Buttar reveals the brutal combat that defined the final death throes of the Third Reich.

Not only was the outcome of the war at stake. As the Red Army rolled into Berlin this was already a foregone conclusion even if it would take its toll in blood. Already battle lines for the forthcoming Cold War were being drawn. Stalin, fearful that the Western Powers would not honour their agreements, was determined to have boots on the ground to ensure his control of what would become the Soviet occupation zone.

Berlin: Endgame 1945 is the brilliant account of the ferocious climax to World War II and a chilling prologue to the Cold War.

In January 1945, the Red Army launched a powerful offensive across the Vistula River to drive the Wehrmacht out of Poland, with the intention of securing a start line for an operation that would ultimately result in the capture of Berlin and the end of the war. But, as Prit Buttar expertly reveals, there were other issues at play. Stalin was determined to push the boundaries of the Soviet Union further west, restoring land lost by the tsars and securing vast industrial and mineral wealth. While negotiations took place between the Allied powers regarding the fate of Poland, the Red Army burst through the German lines, liberating Auschwitz even as the SS drove concentration camp inmates onto frozen roads in a series of death marches.

The Wehrmacht staged a desperate fight back with their last major armoured offensive on the Eastern Front. Launched in February 1945 from the German-Polish border, it forced a halt to the Soviet forces on the banks of the Oder before the rush to Berlin. Written by an acknowledged expert on the Eastern Front and packed with first-hand accounts, this is the definitive account of the strategic goals, both military and political, of Stalin, his generals, and their armies as they raced into the Reich, and of the German forces who stood in the way.

Shortlisted for the Military History Matters Book of the Year Award 2024

A ground-breaking history of the siege of Leningrad, masterfully brought to life by a leading expert using original Russian and German source material.

Starting in September 1941, the Red Army and the civilian population of Leningrad endured a bitter 900-day siege, struggling against constant bombing, shelling, and starvation inflicted by the encircling Axis forces. The Soviets made repeated, but unsuccessful, bids to break German lines and reach the city, failing to end the siege but nevertheless defying the odds to construct and defend the ‘Road to Life’ over the frozen Lake Ladoga, across which meager supplies were transported to the embattled garrison. Although they defeated Russia’s Second Shock Army twice over, the German infantry divisions were also steadily eroded, their resources and morale depleted under the pressure of near-constant assaults and battles.

With To Besiege a City, Eastern Front historian Prit Buttar interweaves first-hand accounts with revelatory research to deliver the first major history of the siege of Leningrad in over a decade, expertly analyzing strategic failings on both sides while simultaneously detailing the horrific realities of daily life during a merciless war.

At the height of World War II the people of Leningrad endured a bitter 900-day siege, struggling against bombing, shelling, and starvation. Prit Buttar tells the story of how the siege was finally broken. The Red Army had suffered multiple setbacks in the preceding two years but achieved a partial success by breaking the blockage in early 1943. However, this was followed by further failed attempts to lift the siege completely.

But by simply enduring the siege in the face of impossible odds, Russian soldiers and civilians beat the Germans. By the end of 1943 the German forces, themselves broken by deprivations and extreme weather, began to pull back. Here was the opportunity the Soviet forces had been waiting for. The Red Army launched a decisive attack that broke through and ended the siege. Their determination to hold out has become a hugely significant part of Russian history, the echoes of the battle helping to define both a country and its politics.

This compelling history uses original Russian source material to vividly describe the deprivations visited upon those trapped. But it also details the tactical successes and strategic failures of both sides as well as the appalling war crimes that have forever stained the ground in and around this historic city.

The fighting between the German and Russian armies in the Rzhev Salient during World War II was so grisly, so murderous, and saw such vast losses that the troops called the campaign ‘The Meat Grinder’. Though millions of men would fight and die there, the Rzhev Salient does not have the name recognition of Leningrad or Moscow. It has been largely ignored by Western historians – until now.

In this book, Prit Buttar, a leading expert on the Eastern Front, reveals the depth and depravity of the bitter fighting. He details how the region held the promise of a renewed drive on Moscow for the German Army – a chance to turn the tide of war. Using German and Russian first-hand accounts, Buttar examines the major offensives launched by the Red Army against the salient, all of which were defeated with losses exceeding two million killed, wounded or missing, until eventually, the Germans were forced to evacuate the salient in March 1943.

Drawing on the latest research, Meat Grinder provides a study of these horrific battles but also examines how the Red Army did learn from its colossal failures and how its timely analysis of these failures helped pave the way for the eventual Soviet victory against Army Group Centre in the summer of 1944, leaving the road to Berlin clear.