This book is a rare first-hand account by a ruthlessly efficient German sniper of life & death during the bitter conflict that followed the Nazi invasion of Russia Josef ' Sepp' Allerberger was an Austrian conscript who qualified as a Wehrmacht machine-gunner & was drafted to the Southern sector of the Front in July 1942 After being wounded at Voroshilovsk he experimented successfully with a captured Russian sniper-rifle whileconvalescing & returned to his unit as his regiment's only sniper specialist In the gruelling months that followed as the German Army was forced to withdraw under almost constant pressure from the Russians Allerberger became the second most successful German sniper & one of the very few private soldiers to be awarded the coveted Knights Cross This harrowing & graphic memoir provides a vivid insight to the atrocious conditions & brutal cruelty of this campaign There was we learn no place for chivalry & few prisoners survived long after capture Allerberger relates the cunning discipline & fieldcraft that not only saw him survive during the near constant action but made him such a relentless assassin