This book is devoted to the battles on the Eastern, and German-Soviet front during a fifteen-month period from the end of the Battle of Kursk (August 1943) to the entry of the Red Army in late November 1944 in Eastern Prussia (Germany). Then a relative pause has been established at both the Eastern and Western fronts. This period of World War II is also reflected in the title of the book. Characteristic for it is that the Germans are already fighting in a state of flexible, or as they call it, “elastic strategic defense” with a desire for maneuver warfare and counterattacks. Manstein’s thesis that “whoever wants to liberate territories let him pay for it with blood” has been carried out consistently and purposefully by the Wehrmacht.