"The city of Vitebsk in Belarus was of strategic importance during the fighting on the Eastern Front, as it controlled the route to Minsk. A salient in the German lines, Vitebsk had been declared a Festerplatz - a fortress town - meaning that it must be held at all costs - a task handed to the German 3rd Panzer Army in 1943. Otto Heidkamper was chief of staff of Georg-Hans Reinhardt's 3rd Panzer Army, Army Group Center, which was stationed around Vitebsk and Smolensk from early 1942 until June 1944. His detailed account of the defense of Vitebsk through the winter of 1943 into 1944, right up to the Soviet summer offensive, is a valuable first-hand account of how the operations around Vitebsk played out"--