Author: Willy Peter Reese. Editors/Translators: Edited by Stefan Schmitz; translated by Michael Hofmann. Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Publication Date: November 2, 2005. Format: Hardcover, 192 pages. Summary The book is a haunting, posthumously published memoir and diary of Willy Peter Reese, a young German soldier who served on the Russian front during World War II. It provides a raw and poetic account of the atrocities of war, documenting the physical and psychological destruction of soldiers and civilians alike on the Eastern Front. Reese was killed in action in 1944 at the age of 23.