Between Giants: The Battle for the Baltics in World War II

During World War II, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia found themselves trapped between the giants of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Over the course of the war these states were repeatedly occupied by different forces, and local government organizations and individuals were forced to choose between supporting the occupying forces or forming partisan units to resist their occupation. Devastated during the German invasion, these states then became the site of some of the most vicious fighting during the Soviet counter-attack and push towards Berlin. Many would be caught up in the bitter fighting in the region and, in particular, in the huge battles for the Courland Bridgehead during Operation Bagration, when hundreds of thousands of soldiers would fight and die in the last year of the war. By the end of the war, death and deportation had cost the Baltic States over 20 per cent of their total population and Soviet occupation was to see the iron curtain descend on the region for four decades. Using numerous first-hand accounts and detailed archival research, Prit Buttar weaves a magisterial account of the bitter fighting on the Eastern Front and the three small states whose fates were determined by the fortunes and misfortunes of war.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations/ List of Maps/ Author’s Note/ Dramatis Personae/ Preface/ Introduction/Molotov, Ribbentrop and the First Soviet Occupation/ Rosenberg, Generalplan Ost and Preparations for Barbarossa/ The Wehrmacht in Full Flood/ The Baltic Holocaust/ Reluctant Allies/ Narva, January to April 1944/ Breaking the Deadlock: Summer 1944/ From Doppelkopf to Cäsar/ The Isolation of Army Group North/ Courland, October to December 1944/ Endgame/ Aftermath/ Appendices/ Endnotes/ Bibliography/ Extract from Battleground Prussia/ Index

About the Author :
Prit Buttar studied medicine at Oxford and London before joining the British Army as a doctor. After leaving the army, he has worked as a GP, first near Bristol and now in Abingdon. He is extensively involved in medical politics, both at local and national level, and serves on the GPs' Committee of the British Medical Association. He appears from time to time on local and national TV and radio, speaking on a variety of medical issues. He contributes regularly to the medical press. An expert on the Eastern Front during World War II, he previously wrote the critically acclaimed Battleground Prussia: The Assault on Germany's Eastern Front 1944–45 (Osprey 2010).

Review :
"[A] carefully balanced account of the predicament in which Balts found themselves...Mr. Buttar is himself an army veteran, and it is from the military perspective that he relates the savage unraveling of the Baltic world during World War II's last year. There's plenty here on weaponry, on tactics and strategy." --Andrew Stuttaford, The Wall Street Journal "By magnificently mining and marshaling sources, Buttar potently recaps this tragic chapter in Baltic history. Serious students of WWII's Eastern Front should make Osprey's terrific tome required reading." --David E. Veres, www.cybermodeler.com "Buttar potently recaps [a] tragic chapter in Baltic history." --David L. Veres, www.cybermodeler.com "A magisterial account, Between Giants does not attempt to judge the decisions made by the leaders and the people of the Baltic States, who struggled to reconcile the situation in which they found themselves with their own aspirations. It elucidates the terrible destruction and bloodshed that had such a devastating effect on this corner of Europe, the consequences of which are still felt today." --Savannah Jones, www.sirreadalot.org