Operation Leningrad: SS Wotan in Russia

Summer 1942. Leningrad, Russia's premier city after Moscow, has been besieged by German and Finnish troops for weeks in a stalemate that will eventually last 900 gruelling days. Neither commander will back down. Stalin will defend it to the last; Hitler will fight to the last to gain it.

Now Hitler personally prepares a daring and ambitious plan. The city is surrounded save for a narrow corridor based on Lake Ladoga. There the Russians, not expecting a German armoured attack in the snow that's soon to come, have reduced their forces to three infantry divisions. Aware of this, Hitler decides to send in his elite "Wotan". It will use Finland as its base, passing secretly through the immense forests of the area, and take the defenders of Lake Ladoga by complete surprise. Or at least, that's the plan.

The war — a battle of the Titans — has become a personal matter between Hitler and Stalin, and Wotan will undergo tremendous suffering and losses to make Hitler's dream come true.

Operation Leningrad is an SS Wotan novel, set in 1942. Leo Kessler is the pseudonym of prolific WW2 author and historian Charles Whiting. Whiting uses his deep knowledge of the Second World War as the basis of the Kessler novels. In this epic, readers can see likenesses to real world events. Over three million Whiting books have been sold worldwide. If you've enjoyed Sven Hassel or Eric Meyer, sample some tongue-in-cheek war action courtesy of Leo Kessler.