Throughout the war on the Eastern Front, there were two consistent trends. The Red Army fought to learn how to fight and win, while at the same time fighting for its own survival. But by 1944, it had a leadership that it could deploy with lethal effect and far more effective equipment than before. In contrast, the Wehrmacht had begun a slow decline after the invasion of the Soviet Union. Hitler was increasingly unwilling to transfer decision-making powers to the commanders on the ground, which had been crucial to the earlier success. The long years of fighting had also taken a heavy toll. Thousands of irreplaceable young officers and NCOs were dead, wounded or captured. Eastern Front expert Prit Buttar skilfully brings to life these contrasting fates, which culminated in the great battles of Operation Bagration. As this study conclusively demonstrates, the Red Army finally succeeded in 1944 in a campaign that completely destroyed the German Army Group Centre. The Wehrmacht lost over 300,000 killed, wounded and captured, and the Red Army advanced across Belarus to the outskirts of Warsaw. The end of the war was still many months away and the Germans managed to re-establish their line on the Eastern Front, but the final victory of the Soviet Union was only a matter of time as a direct result of "Bagration".
