Page up for Volume 7 of "Black Cross Red Star" - Coming 2027

[Edward]

Black Cross Red Star – Air War over the Eastern Front : Volume 7, On to the West! Winter and Spring 1943-1944
(Vaktel Förlag - early 2027)
by Christer Bergström
384 pages w/ hundreds of b&w photos, color profiles and maps - hardcover (large format A 4)
849 SEK
1200 SEK - crowdfunding. signed and numbered copy
Order at vaktelforlag@gmail.com

The continuation of Black Cross Red Star series, Volume 7 depicts in detail—and with a balanced perspective from both sides—the ongoing development of the dramatic air war on the Eastern Front during the winter and spring of 1943–1944. This was a period when the Soviet Air Force caught up with, and in some cases surpassed, the Germans’ initial qualitative advantage, leading to increased German losses.

At the same time, the Luftwaffe still possessed a hard core of veterans who had survived the early years of the war and therefore had immense combat experience. In battles with these men—whose equals were hardly to be found anywhere else, not even in other theaters of the Luftwaffe—the Soviet airmen continued to suffer heavy casualties. The air war on the Eastern Front during the period covered here was more unforgiving than ever before. The Germans were fighting with their backs to the wall, while the Soviets drew strength from the growing certainty that final victory was within reach.

Contents:
Air War over Kerch
The Final Air Battles at Leningrad
The Cherkassy Airlift
Shturmoviks over Ukraine
Luftwaffe “Super Aces”: Barkhorn, Hartmann, Rall
Soviet Air Power against First Panzer Army

https://vaktelforlag.se/produkt/blac...ing-1943-1944/

[Edward]

Now taking Pre-Orders for Volume 7

850 SEK ($85 US) + shipping
1,200 SEK - crowdfunding

Christer Bergström writes
"I am very happy to let you know that the time has now come to pre-order Black Cross Red Star Volume 7: Air War Over the Eastern Front, 1943–1944. See:

https://vaktelforlag.se/produkt/blac...ing-1943-1944/

After another year of intensive research and writing, Volume 7 is now approaching completion, and I warmly invite you to pre-order your copy directly from me.

Volume 7 continues the story through the dramatic winter of 1943–1944, when the war on the Eastern Front entered another decisive phase. The Red Army was pressing westward along an enormous front, the siege of Leningrad was finally broken, and the great battle of the Korsun–Cherkassy Pocket developed in Ukraine. Above these battlefields, the Luftwaffe and the Soviet air forces fought some of the most intense and fascinating air battles of the war.

As always, the story is reconstructed through extensive research in both German and Soviet primary sources, allowing claims, losses, combat reports, and eyewitness accounts from the two sides to be compared with one another. This has produced a great deal of material that, to my knowledge, has never before appeared in English.

PRE-ORDER AND CROWDFUNDING

The regular price is 850 SEK (approximately US $85).

However, I would be deeply grateful if you would consider supporting the production of Volume 7 as a crowdfunder with 1,200 SEK.

Every crowdfunder will receive a signed and individually numbered copy.

Your support is enormously important. Black Cross Red Star is an independently published series, and maintaining its standard is expensive. The books are produced in large A4 format, hardcover, with hundreds of photographs, detailed maps, tables, and specially commissioned full-color aircraft profiles by Jim Laurier.

I refuse to compromise on that quality.

Pre-orders and crowdfunding make it possible for me to continue producing the series at this level.

Please make your payment via PayPal to:

vaktelforlag@gmail.com

To avoid the PayPal fee, you may use the “Friends & Family” option where available. If you use the standard payment method, please add 6% to cover the fee.

To complete your order, please e-mail me (in a SEPARATE email, not as a reply to this message) your full postal address and telephone number, which is required for international delivery.

IMPORTANT: Please reply ONLY to: vaktelforlag@gmail.com

THE BLACK CROSS / RED STAR PROJECT
For more than two decades, my ambition with Black Cross / Red Star has been to reconstruct the air war on the Eastern Front as accurately and completely as possible — not from the perspective of one side, but through the surviving records and personal accounts of both sides.

Volume 7 takes that work another major step forward.

The deeper I have gone into the original German and Soviet documentation, the more fascinating the story has become. Once again, I have found that many events look quite different when the records of both sides are placed alongside one another.

The result is not merely a chronology of aerial victories and losses. It is the story of the men who fought this enormous air war, the aircraft they flew, the battles on the ground that shaped their missions, and the extraordinary conditions under which they lived and fought during the winter of 1943–1944.

Like the previous volumes, Volume 7 will be a substantial large-format (A 4) hardcover book, richly illustrated with rare photographs, maps, tables, and professionally researched aircraft profiles. 384 pages, like all other volumes, and the same excellent printing quality.

If you have enjoyed the previous volumes of Black Cross / Red Star, I believe you will find Volume 7 a worthy continuation of the series.

You can also help enormously simply by spreading the word. Please tell friends who are interested in WWII aviation, share information about the series on social media, or forward this e-mail to fellow aviation and military-history enthusiasts.

You can browse my other WWII books in English here:

https://vaktelforlag.se/produkt-kategori/english/

An excerpt from Black Cross Red Star Volume 2 can be found here:

https://vaktelforlag.se/wp-content/u...rs2extract.pdf

Black Cross / Red Star remains a unique undertaking: a book series devoted to documenting the air war on the Eastern Front in unprecedented depth, using extensive German and Soviet primary documentation together with veteran accounts and photographic evidence.

There is still much of this enormous story left to tell, and I intend to continue the series until that story has been told.

But I can only do it with the support of readers like you.

Please pre-order Black Cross Red Star Volume 7 — and, if you are able, please consider becoming one of its crowdfunders.

Every pre-order helps.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your loyalty and continued support of Black Cross / Red Star. It means more to me than I can adequately express."

All the best,

Christer Bergström
Vaktel Förlag
Strandgatan 2A
S-633 43 Eskilstuna
Sweden
vaktelforlag.se
+46 - 733 – 73 33 61