This is the second volume of a two-volume set, which together comprise a detailed and well-researched history of the important but neglected operation that was to be the beginning of the liberation of western Ukraine. On 24 December 1943, the Red Army launched the first of a series of winter offensives against the German Army Group South under von Manstein, the overall object of which was to liberate western Ukraine from occupation. This first offensive is known to Soviet historians as the Zhitomir-Berdichev operation. Based on the unpublished records of the German 1st and 4th Panzer Armies, and supplemented by comprehensive mapping and order of battle data, this book provides an authoritative, detailed, day-by-day account of German operations as they developed in response to the Soviet offensive. It also provides a vivid insight into the planning and decision-making of the German Army field commands in conducting not only a mobile defense, but also a series of counterattacks, which, in the final analysis, could do little more than provide a temporary respite in the face of the growing strength and skill of the Red Army.