The warm autumn air was thick with acrid smoke and the smell of fresh blood. Heinz Steiner crouched low in the dense thicket. As the crack of gunshots and screams echoed through the dense woods, he stopped and carefully considered his options. The sounds were coming from near the clearing at the north edge of the woods where the widow Rothnig and her five scrawny, starving spawn lived in a makeshift hovel. Unarmed, Heinz was no match for the élite French troops who relentlessly terrorized the lower Rhine and upper Danube River Valleys. They killed whatever and whomever happened to be in their path, and they enjoyed it. When Princess Theraisa Von Steiner discovers she is with child soon after the tragic death of her beloved David Ritter, there is no match for the trepidation that consumes her soul. The smallest level of comfort finds her when her Aunt Louisa offers her only solution: travel to the Volga to have the child in secret. Little did Theraisa and Louisa know that the journey would be so perilous, and the newborn child would be the one responsible for bringing the Steiner bloodline to America at the turn of the century. Based on the true story of author Karen Schutte's family, Seed of the Volga captures the chilling tale of her ancestors journey to the German settlements along the Volga River in Russia. They left their family and the only home they had ever known while realizing they would never see them again. Over 140 years later the people felt the hot breath of Russian politics breathing down their necks and they chose to leave the prosperous German settlements along Russia's Volga River. In 1907 David and Sofie Steiner discovered the streets in America were not lined with gold.

A rich and fascinating exploration of the Volga--the first to fully reveal its vital place in Russian history The longest river in Europe, the Volga stretches over three and a half thousand km from the heart of Russia to the Caspian Sea, separating west from east. The river has played a crucial role in the history of the peoples who are now a part of the Russian Federation--and has united and divided the land through which it flows. Janet Hartley explores the history of Russia through the Volga from the seventh century to the present day. She looks at it as an artery for trade and as a testing ground for the Russian Empire's control of the borderlands, at how it featured in Russian literature and art, and how it was crucial for the outcome of the Second World War at Stalingrad. This vibrant account unearths what life on the river was really like, telling the story of its diverse people and its vital place in Russian history.

Although Italy was allied with Germany in World War II, the Italian viewpoint on the war often differed sharply from that of the Germans. Malaparte was an eyewitness to the campaigns in Finland, the Ukraine, and Leningrad, and has left behind a moving account of many small incidents in the day-to-day conduct of the war