Nichivo: Life, Love and Death on the Russian Front - Hardcover

While countless histories of the military conflict have been written, very little has ever been told of the appalling suffering endured by the common people who were caught up in the midst of the war. In this book Giorgio Geddes tells the story of the horror experienced by the people who found themselves sandwiched between the two greatest armies the world has ever seen. It is a story of a people constantly harried by bandits and local war-lords, who were routinely robbed of food and fuel by the invading German Army, and who lived under the constant threat of being deported to Germany; people who had just as much to fear from their own troops as from the Germans. And yet buried within all the horror are moments of such beauty that no reader could fail to be moved. Passionately told, this is a stunning and poignant account of life on the Russian Front as never told before.

Giorgio Geddes trained as an engineer, and worked with Ferrari on the first prototypes for his cars. In the war he served as a liaison officer for the Germans on the Russian Front, and won a medal for bravery at Stalingrad. When Italy changed sides Geddes was sent to a concentration camp, from which he escaped to join the partisans fighting Italy's former allies. After the war he emigrated to Italy, where he worked for Time magazine, and the New York Times.. He now runs his own engineering company in Florence.