War in the East. Diary of a Motorized Company Commander. 1941—1945

Helmut Schibel, the commander of a company in the 13th Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht, describes the path he traveled on the roads of World War II. This is a story about the fierce battles on the Eastern Front, about the harsh soldier's everyday life, about how front-line soldiers fought and perished. His diary is a testament of a soldier who has experienced the horrors of a terrible war but has not lost his human dignity and ability to reflect: he tries to be objective in his assessments, paying tribute to courage and nobility regardless of who displays them: Soviet warriors or Wehrmacht soldiers. Confidence in victory shifts to an understanding of the impending catastrophe; at the end of the narrative, he bitterly states: "We have had our youth stolen from us. It is all over for us. Soon everything will collapse, and the Third Reich will never exist."