There is still a widespread assumption that the Second World War was won in the West, when in fact the tide was first turned on the Eastern front. This book, written by two internationally known experts on the subject, argues that Hitler's Ostkrieg was the central event of the global conflict between the Allies and the Axis powers. However, this is much more than a traditional military political history: it deals with Nazi crimes and economic exploitation, with the psychological war.

No less significantly, this volume provides a guide to the extensive literature on the war in the East, including largely unknown Soviet writing on the subject. Indispensable for military historians, but also for all scholars who approach this crucial period in world history from a socio-economic or cultural perspective.