On a fateful Sunday in late June 1941, millions of German soldiers poured into the Soviet Union, beginning Operation Barbarossa: the Nazis’ war of annihilation in the East. Stewart Binns here explores the struggle of the Russian army to defend itself amid the German onslaught, as well as many civilian tales of homes and lives being overrun by a brutal and merciless foreign invasion.

Barbarossa and the Bloodiest War in History Stewart Binns Headline, £20 (hbk) ISBN 978-1472276261