from Wikipedia
The two acting main characters in Stalingrad are the Panzer-Oberst Vilshofen and Gnotke, NCO of a Punishment Company. Both men come from different backgrounds and experience the war differently. The Colonel is a convinced soldier who obeys orders and cares for his men. He fights with a sense of duty, but loses confidence in the German military leadership as he senses that he and his men are being sacrificed to a lost cause. NCO Gnotke's work is to collect the dead, or their dismembered parts, from the battlefield. He loses his humanity as he works under constant fire and is exposed to unrelenting horror month after month during the war. The reader learns how he warms up his body on freshly fallen soldiers. These chapters resemble true horror-stories.
Plivier's book Stalingrad has been regarded as the most important work of literature to emerge from the eastern front during World War II. Its pitiless descriptions of battle and the failures of the German military leadership indicts Hitler's megalomania and illustrates the senselessness of war. He died in 1955 and is today a largely forgotten author, at least in the English-speaking world.
What book is that?