V. N. Gelfand’s diary for 1945–1946 was published in German translation in 2005 and attracted considerable attention. For perhaps the first time, German readers were able to see the defeat of the Third Reich, the occupation of Germany, and relations between Soviet servicemen and Germans — especially German women, a particularly painful and widely discussed subject in Germany at the end of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first century — through the eyes of a Soviet officer. Lev Kopelev’s memoirs had, of course, already been written and published. They covered a relatively short period, however, and were written retrospectively — as memoirs normally are — by the same person, but years later and from a different stage of life. To some extent, they were also a literary work. Gelfand’s diary, by contrast, covered almost two years and was exceptionally detailed and candid.