Although General Gotthard Heinrici did not write his own memoirs about the “eastern campaign,” he left behind detailed letters to his family and a personal diary, which he kept throughout the war. These notes, which were not initially intended for prying eyes and came to the attention of historians only in the late 90s, paint a new picture of the occupation and the war against the USSR, frank in its mercilessness.

Almost daily emotional and critical letters, which escaped post-facto revision, differ sharply both from the books that came out after the war from the pens of other German military leaders, and from the boring operational history. Sometimes self-satisfied, sometimes sad or caustic reflections on politics, the present, the future are interspersed with momentary sketches of front-line reality, full of mutual hatred, military crises, unbearable conditions and impossible orders. The general’s notes contain enough details that are more typical of the texts of trench soldiers, but at the same time the reader is given the broad perspective of a staff officer: Heinrici successively commanded a corps, an army, and an army group, starting with the attack on Moscow and ending with the defense of Berlin.

Through pre-war letters and diary entries that supplement the main text, it becomes clear how a pessimistic, analytically thinking Wehrmacht general was forged from a pastor's son, a conservative young officer, who, participating in a criminal colonial campaign against the USSR, put all his talent as a strategist in the service of Hitler.