Into the Reich
The Red Army’s advance to the Oder in 1945
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 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 his future grip on Eastern Europe. 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 failed to achieve its aim of destroying the Red Army’s spearheads, but the Soviet forces had to pause on the banks of the Oder before the surge to Berlin. 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.
To be published in September 2025
Bagration 1944
The Great Soviet Offensive
Throughout the war on the Eastern Front, there were two consistent trends. The Red Army battled to learn how to fight and win, while involved in a struggle for its very survival. But by 1944 it had a leadership that was able to wield it with lethal effect and with far more effective equipment than before. By contrast, the Wehrmacht had commenced a slow process of decline after the invasion of the Soviet Union. Hitler became increasingly unwilling to delegate decision-making to commanders in the field, which had been crucial to earlier success. The long years of fighting had also taken a heavy toll. Thousands of irreplaceable junior officers and NCOs were dead, wounded or prisoners.
These trends culminated in the huge battles of Bagration. As this study conclusively shows, in 1944 the Red Army finally put together a campaign that utterly destroyed the German Army Group Centre. The Wehrmacht suffered the loss of over 300,000 men killed, wounded or taken prisoner and the Red Army rolled forward across Belarus and eastern Poland to the outskirts of Warsaw. The end of the war was still many months away, and the Germans managed to reconstruct a fragile line on the Eastern Front, but final victory for the Soviet Union was now only a matter of time as a direct consequence of Bagration.
‘A dynamic and engrossing read – Buttar captures the drama and detail of one of the most important campaigns of the Second World War’ - David Stahel
Hero City
Leningrad 1943-1944
Following on from To Besiege A City, this book 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. But further attempts to lift the siege completely failed repeatedly.
In late 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: they 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.
Using original Russian source material , this book describes the ordeal of Leningraders, and 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. There is also a discussion of how the memory of the siege was manipulated by the Soviet authorities to hide much of the truth from the Soviet population.
‘The final, definitive word on the most brutal siege of a population in modern history’ - Iain MacGregor
‘Buttar’s complete command of the sources makes him uniquely qualified to complete this story’ - Peter Caddick-Adams
‘Buttar’s two books provide one of the most comprehensive English-language accounts of the siege’ - The Spectator
To Besiege A City
Leningrad, 1941-1942
This history of the first two years of a crucial battle for the heart and soul of Russia is the first in over a decade and also the first to look comprehensively at the wider military strategies of both sides.
At a huge cost, the Red Army and the civilian population of Leningrad ultimately endured a bitter 900-day siege, struggling against constant bombing, shelling, and starvation. Throughout the siege, Soviet forces tried to break the German lines and restore contact with the garrison. To Besiege a City charts the first of these offensives which began in January 1942 and was followed by repeated assaults. This account details how although the Red Army suffered huge casualties in the swampy and forested terrain, the German infantry divisions were also steadily eroded. Indeed, by keeping control of parts of the shores of Lake Ladoga, the Soviet Union was able to sustain Leningrad through the winters of the siege via the 'road of life', constructed across the frozen lake. This history details the dramatic race to create the road across the ice and first-hand accounts from both Soviet and German soldiers, many never previously translated, bring the horrific series of battles and assaults to life.
Ultimately the determination of the defenders to hold out during this first phase of the siege and the desperate attempts to break it became a hugely significant part of Russian wartime history. The echoes of the battle persist to this day helping to define both a country and its politics.
‘[An] excellent account’ - Richard Overy, The Telegraph
‘An engaging and informative work’ - Warfare History Network
‘An important work which brings together key elements of the story in a way which illuminates understanding’ - British Journal for Military History
Shortlisted for the Military History Matters Book of the Year Award 2024
Meat Grinder
The Battles For The Rzhev Salient 1942-1943
A forgotten story brought to life by the harrowing memoirs of German and Russian soldiers.
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, and it has been largely ignored by Western historians. Soviet accounts, too, neglected the battles, wishing to forget the catastrophic mistakes and huge losses.
This book details how the region held the promise of a renewed drive on Moscow for the German Army – a chance to win the war. Using German and Russian first-hand accounts, it 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 the Germans were forced to evacuate the salient in March 1943.
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.
‘This is an excellent book and a worthy addition to studies of the Eastern Front’ - Aspects of History
‘A continuance of his high standards of research and writing’ - Warfare History Network
‘Centuries Will Not Suffice’
A History Of The Lithuanian Holocaust
This book explores how different people responded to the Lithuanian Holocaust and the roles that they played. It considers the past history of the perpetrators and those who took great risks to save Jews, as well as describing the experiences of many who were caught up in the maelstrom. Unlike the figures at the top of the Nazi hierarchy, the men who were responsible for these killings have been largely forgotten. Karl Jäger was a senior SS figure who was in charge of the units that carried out most of them. He complained that his experiences caused him to suffer nightmares but continued to order his units to carry on and refused offers of sick leave on the grounds that he regarded it as his duty to remain in his post. He took refuge in compiling painstakingly detailed reports of the killings, listing the numbers executed at every location and breaking them down into men, women and children. The roles played by other figures, from Himmler and Heydrich at the summit, through the ranks of men down to Martin Weiss and Bruno Kittel who were personally responsible for carrying out Nazi policies, are all described. Before the German invasion of Lithuania, two diplomats – Chiune Sugihara from Japan and Jan Zwartendijk from the Netherlands – recognised the great danger that lay ahead for the Jews of the Baltic region and did what they could to help them escape. Karl Plagge, a major in the Wehrmacht, did all he could to save Jews, and Feldwebel Anton Schmid paid with his life for his humanity. What perhaps make the terrible story of the Baltic genocide unique is that the Nazi regime was able to rely upon collaboration by convincing the populace that the Soviet invasion of the area was the responsibility of the Jews.
‘Engaging, potent and informative, this is another excellent work from Buttar’ - All About History Magazine
‘[Schmid and Plagge] provide the light in an otherwise bleak, but important book.’- The Armourer Magazine
The Reckoning
The Defeat of Army Group South, 1944
A re-evaluation of the fateful year of 1944 in the southern sector of the Eastern Front, and how the Red Army irrevocably turned the tide of war until the final defeat within the heart of Germany was certain.
The fighting throughout the Ukraine and Romania was brutal, with the German defence dogged and desperate. But for too long the Wehrmacht had relied on the superior combat prowess of its fighting men. What had not been taken into account, however, was that the Red Army would not only rely on its sheer size, but would fine-tune its fighting performance from its senior commanders right down to the individual soldier battling both fear and the elements to take each line, each trench, each inch of land.
Ultimately it is a story not just of how the Germans lost, as is all too often told, but of how the Russians increasingly learned how to win.
‘The Reckoning is vivid history, the tragic Eastern Front brought to life through the widest range of Russian and German sources I've ever read. Bravo’ - Peter Caddick-Adams
‘If you find the scale and complexity of the Eastern Front battles daunting, pick up a copy, relax and let Prit Buttar lead the way ... totally absorbing narrative’ - Mike Peters, Chairman, International Guild of Battlefield Guides
‘A masterful account of the war in the East’ - The Armourer
‘An engrossing book at every level’ - The Historical Association
‘A refined history of conflict on the Eastern Front, and the sheer detail in which Buttar does so deserves much recognition’ - Aspects of History
Military History Matters Book of the Year Silver Award, 2022
Retribution
The Soviet Reconquest of Central Ukraine, 1943
Retribution follows on from On A Knife's Edge, which described the encirclement and destruction of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad and the offensives and counteroffensives that followed throughout the winter of 1942-43.
Beginning towards the end of the Battle of Kursk, Retribution tells the story of the massive Soviet offensive that followed the end of Operation Zitadelle, which saw depleted and desperate German troops forced out of Western Ukraine. This book describes in detail the little-known series of near-constant battles that saw a weakened German army confronted by a tactically sophisticated force of over six million Soviet troops.
As a result, the Wehrmacht was driven back to the Dnepr and German forces remaining in the Kuban Peninsula south of Rostov were forced back into the Crimea, a retreat which would become one of many in the months that followed.
‘Beyond the amazing level of operational detail and the well interspersed personal recollections, Buttar performs an excellent strategic and operational analysis of this mostly ignored campaign’- New York Journal of Books
On A Knife’s Edge
Ukraine, November 1942 - March 1943
The battle of Stalingrad was the turning point of World War II. The German capture of the city, their encirclement by Soviet forces shortly afterwards, and the hard-fought but futile attempts to relieve them, saw bitter attritional fighting and extremes of human misery inflicted on both sides.
The war was not over. The surrender of Paulus's army left Germany's eastern armies severely weakened, but the Red Army had suffered enormous losses as it overreached itself in trying to exploit its great victory. Germany would continue the fight, and the battles that took place in the winter of 1942/43 would show the tactical and operational skill of Erich von Manstein and the Wehrmacht as they attempted to avert total disaster.
Drawing on first-hand accounts, On a Knife's Edge is a story of brilliant generalship, lost opportunities and survival in the harshest theatre of war.
‘A fascinating read for anyone looking to better understand operations in the Ukraine surrounding what was perhaps the most infamous battle on the Eastern Front - Historynet
The Splintered Empires
The Eastern Front, 1917-21
At the beginning of 1917, the three empires fighting on the Eastern Front were reaching their breaking points, but none was closer than Russia. After the February Revolution, Russia's ability to wage war faltered and her last desperate gamble, the Kerensky Offensive, saw the final collapse of her army. This helped trigger the Bolshevik Revolution and a crippling peace, but the Central Powers had no opportunity to exploit their gains and, a year later, both the German and Austro-Hungarian empires surrendered and disintegrated.
Concluding a four-book series on the Eastern Front in World War I, this book comprehensively details not only these climactic events, but also the ‘successor wars’ that flared up long after the armistice of 1918. New states rose from the ashes of empire, and war raged as German forces sought to keep them under the aegis of the Fatherland. These unresolved tensions between the former Great Powers and the new states would ultimately lead to the rise of Hitler and a new, terrible world war only two decades later.
‘A detailed, well-paced account of a critical chapter in the twentieth century’ - Bosphorus Review of Books
‘ This intelligent, accessible work … is an especially important contribution to Americans' understanding of how today's Europe (and the United States' role in it) came about’ - Washington Independent Review of Books
‘Buttar’s expert, often gruesome account of events in the region illuminates an era of conflict, mass murder, famine and genocide that remains relatively obscure only because it was followed by worse’ - Historynet
Russia’s Last Gasp
The Eastern Front, 1916-1917
Despite the increasingly futile, bloody struggles for territory that had characterised the Eastern Front the previous year, the German and Austro-Hungarian commands held high hopes for 1916.
After the success of the 1915 Gorlice–Tarnów Offensive, which had driven Russia out of Galicia and Poland, Germany was free to renew its efforts in the west. Austria-Hungary, meanwhile, turned its attention to defeating Italy.
In an attempt to relieve pressure on their British and French allies at the Somme and Verdun, Russia launched one of the bloodiest campaigns in the history of warfare. General Brusilov's June advance was quickly characterised by innovative tactics, including the use of shock troops – a tactic that German armies would later adapt to great effect. The momentum continued with Romania's entry into the war and the declaration by the Central Powers of a Kingdom of Poland – two events which would radically transform the borders of post-war Europe.
This is a detailed account of an explosive year on the Eastern Front, one that gave Russia its greatest success on the battlefield but plunged the nation into revolution at home.
‘Russia’s Last Gasp is a necessary and relevant source to begin the process of understanding the complexity of modern warfare on a continental scale at all levels of war. It is not a narrative of just the fighting; it is a comprehensive study of policy, strategy, and fighting at a level of detail most books on World War I in particular, or military history in general, do not go into’ - Army University Press
Germany Ascendant
The Eastern Front, 1915
The massive offensives on the Eastern Front during 1915 are too often overshadowed by the events in Western Europe, but the scale and ferocity of the clashes between Imperial Germany, Hapsburg Austria-Hungary, and Tsarist Russia were often greater than anything seen on the Western Front and ultimately as important to the final outcome of the war.
Germany Ascendant examines the critical events of 1915, as the German Gorlice-Tarnów Offensive triggered the collapse of Russian forces, coming tantalisingly close to knocking Russia out of the war altogether. Throughout the year, German dominance on the Eastern Front grew - but stubborn Russian resistance forced the continuation of a two-front war that would drain Germany's reserves of men and equipment.
From the bitter fighting in the Carpathian Mountains, where the cragged peaks witnessed thousands of deaths and success was measured in feet and inches, to the sweeping advances through Serbia where the capital Belgrade was seized, to the almost medieval battle for the fortress of Przemysl, this is a detailed history of some the most important moments of the First World War.
‘This book deserves to be on the shelf of every World War I aficionado’ - Roads to the Great War
‘A comprehensive study of the horrors of the Eastern Front as the First World War settled into its second year … a balanced account of the challenges of allied operations, grand strategy and above all else, the valour of the soldiers themselves. His narrative is full of excellent lessons for the commanders of today’ - Soldier Magazine
Collision of Empires
The War On The Eastern Front In 1914
The fighting that raged in the East during the First World War was every bit as fierce as that on the Western Front, but the titanic clashes between three towering empires - Russia, Austro-Hungary, and Germany - remain comparatively unknown facets of the Great War.
Collision of Empires is a timely expose of the bitter fighting on this forgotten front - a clash that would ultimately change the face of Europe forever. Drawing on firsthand accounts and detailed archival research, this describes the tumultuous events of the first year of the war, with the battles of Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes in East Prussia followed by the Russo-Austrian clashes in Galicia and the failed German advance toward Warsaw.
‘A must read for every Eastern Front historian’ - Roads to the Great War
‘Buttar has done an excellent job at highlighting the major challenges and battles of the Eastern theatre up until the end of 1914’ - Soldier Magazine
Between Giants
The Battle For The Baltics In World War II
This book chronicles the cataclysmic experience of the region that includes modern-day Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia during the Second World War.
The Baltic States suffered more than almost any other territory during World War II, caught on the front-line of some of the war's most vicious battles and squeezed between the vast military might of the German Wehrmacht and the Soviet Red Army. The book describes the coming of war to the region, the German advance towards Leningrad, the Baltic Holocaust, the grinding advance of the Red Army, and the brutal battles of Courland.
‘No military collection strong in World War II should be without this specific, in-depth analysis.’ - The Midwest Book Review
‘Deserves to be read by any true devotee of World War II’ - Military Advisor
‘[A] carefully balanced account of the predicament in which Balts found themselves ... Mr. Buttar is himself an army veteran, and it is from the military perspective that he relates the savage unraveling of the Baltic world during World War II's last year. There's plenty here on weaponry, on tactics and strategy.’ - The Wall Street Journal
Battleground Prussia
The Assault On Germany’s Eastern Front 1944-1945
The terrible months between the arrival of the Red Army on German soil and the final collapse of Hitler's regime were like no other in the Second World War. The Soviet Army's intent to take revenge for the horror that the Nazis had wreaked on their people produced a conflict of implacable brutality in which millions perished.
From the great battles that marked the Soviet conquest of East and West Prussia to the final surrender in the Vistula estuary, this book recounts in detail the desperate struggle of soldiers and civilians alike. These brutal campaigns are brought to life by a combination of previously unseen testimony and strategic analysis, describing a conflict of unprecedented horror and suffering.
‘A grim time not often studied in detail, but an important part of the Eastern Front story’ - Library Journal