About the Book: The book argues that the Soviet Union’s massive victory in Operation Bagration in June 1944—where over two million Red Army soldiers crushed 500,000 German troops on the Eastern Front—was the event that sealed Hitler’s fate and destroyed Nazism, more so than the concurrent D-Day landings in Normandy. Drawing on previously untranslated sources (German, Russian, and Polish), Dimbleby analyzes the military, political, and diplomatic story of the year. He explores how Soviet use of deception and Partisan warfare shifted the balance, and how these triumphs enabled Stalin to dictate the post-war settlement and establish the foundation for the Cold War by occupying Eastern Europe.