Moscow Tramstop

"Even now the full story of the war on the Eastern Front, which began when Germany invaded Russia on 22nd June, 1941, has not been told. The largest, grimmest and most savage theater of war - perhaps of any war - remains largely a subject for conjecture and macabre fantasy, a dreadful picture of interminable, inhuman slaughter amid the steppes, the snow, the terrible cold. Dr. Haape's unit crossed into Russian Poland within the first minutes of Hitler's invasion. He witnessed the first easy victories; was at the front when first the mud, then the bitter cold, heralded the full ferocity of the Russian winter; saw the armies he served with come to within what seemed scarcely more than a day's march from Moscow; visited the Tram Stop, which the German Army held, the nearest point to Moscow from which, in peace-teim, a tram could be taken into the city; felt the rigours of a bloody retreat through the icebound winter, as the Russian counter-attacks increased in efficiency and fury; and throughout this armageddon, where human lives and limbs seemed valueless, tried to help the wounded and preserve some standard of humanity and sanity. Dr. Haape's picture is of an army of good and simple men, carried forward by courage and an almost incredible endurance. Others may take a different view of the army that laid waste Europe, but few people will criticize Dr. Haape for his loyalty to his colleagues and comrades in arms. Factual and unpretentious as is Dr. Haape's account of this vicious fighting, he himself emerges as a man of upright character, courage and kindliness. His story can be read as a thrilling account of an army in action - of ordinary men extended beyond imaginable limits of endurance; or as a fascinating contribution to the documentation of perhaps the most extensive and bitter clash of arms that has even taken place between nations." No photos in this paperback edition.