Between June 1941 and May 1945 the largest conflict the world had ever seen was fought across Eastern Europe, culminating in the absolute defeat of the German Army. The second volume of Barbarossa to Berlin takes a chronological look at the Soviet counter-attack around Stalingrad, Manstein's enigmatic counterstroke through the battle of Kursk, and subsequent German retreat to the Dneipr. By the summer of 1944, the Red Army had achieved a level of offensive experience incomparable to its performances of 1941 and 1942. The success of the operations in Belorussia and the Balkans brought the Soviet forces into Eastern Europe, and German defeat was inevitable, the Soviet offensives destroying not only the Ostheer, but the traditions of German militarism. Soviet victory in the east changed the political face of Europe and determined the next half-century of European history.