Buttar, Prit Into the Reich

The Red Army’s advance to the Oder in 1945

In January 1945, the Red Army launched a massive offensive across the Vistula to drive the Wehrmacht out of Poland. The aim was to secure the starting line for an operation that would ultimately lead to the capture of Berlin and the end of the war. However, as Prit Buttar expertly explains, there were other aspects at play. Stalin was determined to push the borders of the Soviet Union further west, reclaim the land lost by the Tsars and secure vast industrial and mineral wealth. While the Allied powers negotiated the fate of Poland, the Red Army broke through the German lines and liberated Auschwitz, while the SS herded the concentration camp inmates onto frozen roads in a series of death marches. The Wehrmacht fought back desperately and launched its last major armoured offensive on the Eastern Front. Launched from the German-Polish border in February 1945, it forced the Soviet troops to halt on the banks of the Oder before advancing on Berlin. Written by a recognised expert on the Eastern Front and peppered with first-hand accounts, this is an account of the strategic objectives, both military and political, of Stalin, his generals and their armies as they invaded the German Reich, and of the German forces that stood in their way.