About the book: 2009 / In addition to the advanced tactics of the blitzkrieg, in addition to the crushing tank wedges and formidable dive bombers that terrified the enemy, by the beginning of the Second World War the Wehrmacht possessed another “miracle weapon” - the so-called Infanteriegeschutzen (“infantry artillery”), whose guns accompanied the German infantry directly in battle formations in order to, if necessary, support fire, suppress enemy firing points with direct fire, ensure a breakthrough of the enemy’s defenses or repulse his attack . “Infantry artillerymen” were always located in the most dangerous sectors of the front and suffered the heaviest losses; it is not surprising that their memoirs are very rare. And this book is among the best. Willi Lippich was drafted into the army a few days before Hitler attacked Poland and received a baptism of fire in 1940 in France. On the Eastern Front he fought as part of Army Group North, took part in the siege of Leningrad and the bloody battles of Demyansk and Novgorod, fought in the Baltic states and East Prussia. In April 1945, when his entire company was killed, Lippich was lucky to get aboard the last German destroyer and evacuate to the West, miraculously escaping Soviet captivity. As a fire spotter, he was constantly on the front line, saw with his own eyes all the horrors of war - and in his book, in detail and honestly, based on his own combat experience, he spoke about life and death on the Eastern Front.