Just finished reading "Adventures of my Youth: a German Soldier on the Eastern Front, 1941 - 1945" [Armin Scheiderbauer] the very personal story of a young Austrian who at age 18 attends officer training and is posted to the USSR after the worst of December's reverses. Lots of detail about daily life on the central front and attitudes back home in Germany while on leave or training. But what makes it a special book is his account of being on the receiving end of Operation Bagration, June 22, 1944. The Central Front collapses entirely and Armin winds up prisoner with a lung wound and is held by the Soviets until 1947 (the Austrians got off very lightly, it seems). In 1947 he is repatriated, age 24. The book is written for his daughter. Bagration was Stalin`s greatest offensive against Germany. Images of same.