From the wartorn steppes of Russia, from the slopes of Monte Cassino, the stunned, bloody remnants of Hitler's armies were gathered to fight the last battle of the German Reich - the battle of the Western Front. And as the Allies advanced upon Paris, the war erupted into its most ruthless, most savage and cruel phase. Across the scarred, corpse-strewn landscape of Northern France, the men of the panzer tank corps retreated - fighting a suicide action as they went...

Translated from the French by Jean Ure
Corgi Edition published 1971
This edition 1972
© 1971 Sven Hassel
Translation © Transworld Publishers Ltd 1971

Bauer, the black marketeer - Pluto, the huge docker who had stolen a truckload of flour - Möller, who held unfashionable religious convictions - Porta, who had laughed too loud - Stege, the student who had taken part in the demonstrations - I, who had deserted -

These were the men of the 27th Panzer Regiment, convicts stripped of honour, counting their existence in hours and lusting and desecrating like half-crazed animals.

With everything forgotten but the struggle for personal survival, they lived in a maniacal world in which the scream of bullets, the agonised cries of the dying and the frenzied animal couplings with women prisoners were the only realities.

Souvenir Press edition published 1959
Corgi edition published 1961
This edition 1972
© 1959 Sven Hassel
First published in Danish under the title of Doden pa Larvefodder by Grafisk Forlag Copenhagen.