No war has caused greater human suffering than the Second World War on Germany's Eastern Front. Victory in the war cost the Red Army over 29 million casualties, whose collective fate is only now being properly documented. Among the many millions of soldiers who made up that gruesome toll were an unprecedented number of Red Army general officers. Many of these perished on the battlefield or in prison camps at the hands of their German tormentors. Others fell victim to equally terrifying Stalinist repression. Together these generals personify the faceless nature of the war of the Eastern Front...

This, the second book in Alexander A. Maslov's planned trilogy regarding the tragic fate of Red Army general officers who fell victim to the Second World War, is perhaps the most depressing. In it Maslov relates the fate of those generals who fell into German captivity. After relating the grisly circumstances of their ordeal in German prisoner-of-war camps, Maslov tells the sordid tale of how an ungrateful state condemned for treason against their homeland many of those who had served it loyally both in combat and in German prisoner-of-war camps. By exploiting unprecedented archival...