From the initial relentless Russian attack waves to the renowned success at the Battle of Tannenberg, this was a fight for the fatherland unlike any other in WWI. Here the German nightmare was enacted, foreign troops on German soil. In East Prussia, patriotism was a highly motivating force for the German soldiers as they lay down their lives at the Kaiser’s command. Here, too, are the letters the men wrote in the trenches not only from East Prussia but from all theatres of war. “I returned to the place where I'd been lying down with my comrades that morning: You can’t believe the shock that I suffered. All three of them were still in the positions they had taken up, but they were all dead.” “A man was standing there in front of me, a real live Russian, not even the Tsar could have wished for a better man . . . A shot, a scream and he was done with!” This is the war the men fought for their homeland, in their homeland, as told from the frozen and waterlogged trenches and in their own words.