Heinrich Gerlach

Heinrich Gerlach was a German soldier and author who fought at the Battle of Stalingrad and was held as a Soviet prisoner of war for over a decade. Breakout at Stalingrad is his extraordinary novel based on his own experiences during one of the most devastating battles of the Second World War, written first in captivity and then reconstructed decades later after the manuscript was confiscated by Soviet intelligence. The novel offers a visceral, firsthand account of the horror, desperation and human cost of the Stalingrad campaign, widely regarded as a turning point of the war. Gerlach's work stands alongside other great Stalingrad accounts for its authenticity and its unflinching portrayal of war. The story of the manuscript's confiscation and eventual recovery adds another remarkable layer to an already extraordinary book. His audiobooks and books preserve one of the most powerful firsthand accounts of the Eastern Front in the Second World War.