Fighting in Ukraine

This WWII pictorial history shares the personal images captured by a German photographer and soldier who fought on the Eastern Front.

The outcome of the Second World War was decided on the Eastern Front. Denied a swift victory over Stalin’s Red Army, Hitler’s Wehrmacht found itself in a bloody, protracted struggle that it was ill-prepared to fight. Fighting in the Ukraine captures the drama and struggle of the Eastern Front through the extraordinary personal record of a professional photographer, Walter Grimm, who served in the German Army in a communications unit.

David Mitchelhill-Green brings Grimm’s previously unpublished photographs together with a highly informative introduction. The 300 evocative black and white images provide an absorbing insight into the daily life and privations of the ordinary German soldier amid the maelstrom of history’s largest conflict. The Ukrainian people, many of whom initially welcomed the Germans as liberators, freeing them from Bolshevik oppression, are also chronicled in this fascinating photographic study.