Corporal and later sergeant major Hans Roth began to keep his diary in the spring of 1941, when the 299th division, in which he fought, as part of the 6th army, was preparing to attack the Soviet Union. In accordance with the plan of Operation Barbarossa, the division advanced south of the Pripyat swamps during stubborn battles. At the end of the same year, the Rota unit participated in closing the encirclement around Kyiv, and later in fierce battles near Stalingrad, in the battles for Kharkov, Voronezh and Orel. Almost daily, the author without embellishment described everything he saw with his own eyes: bloody battles and brutal massacre of the population in the occupied territories, the harsh soldier's life and dreams of returning to civilian life. In 1944, sergeant major Hans Roth went missing in the Vitebsk pocket, but three diaries have been preserved describing the hostilities in which he took part. Only many years later, Roth's grandchildren discovered them and published their grandfather's notes.