"Using a trove of recently discovered materials, Nash has pulled together the remarkable story of one German unit that was almost continuously engaged in a futile effort to stop the Allied advance across western Europe. Here is the war we rarely see—close combat from the German side. Nash has done a great service to general readers and future historians."

 Ed Ruggero, author of The First Men In: US Paratroopers and The Fight to Save D-Day

"This study is unique in that it focuses on a small unit, an infantry company, when most books describe warfare on the divisional level, or an even larger scale."

George Nipe, author of Decision In the Ukraine, Summer 1943, II. SS and III Panzerkorps and Last Victory In Russia: The SS-Panzerkorps and Manstein's Kharkov Counteroffensive, February-March 1943

"As told through the eyes of German soldiers, Nash gives the first full accounting and range of experience of a Volks-Grenadier division. In detailing the experience of one such division in the Hürtgen Forest, Nash has opened a new window into the bloody fighting at the end of World War II. He also helps to explain why it was that the western allies failed to exploit their successes of the summer and autumn of 1944 and lost their momentum amid the cold, sodden, dreary forests that ranged along the German border. The Volks-Grenadier divisions, even at this late stage of the war, could call on skilled commanders, outstanding small-arms weaponry, and a pool of determined soldiers."

Stephen G. Fritz, author of Frontsoldaten