In langer Reihe über das Haff

It was the bitter cold winter of 1944/45. The Red Army is invading East Prussia, the easternmost province of Germany, at the start of its inexorable advance towards Berlin. Millions of East Prussians are desperate to flee, but the Nazis refuse to let them. Finally, often as the Russians are entering their villages, they are allowed to go. But soon they learn that they are surrounded, virtually cut off from the rest of Germany. Many of them take the perilous route over the frozen lagoon, the Frische Haff, the only route left open. With them are thousands of the most superb horses in the world, the Trakehner, bred over the past two centuries in East Prussia. They flee in large herds or are harnessed to waggons or sleighs and face the same dangers as their guardians and owners. With little to eat, the target of Soviet bombers and tanks, many of them die on the way. Only a few hundred reach the west. They had saved their owners, and their owners had saved them. Rarely has there been such a bond between men and horses. But the story is not over. Given the harsh conditions, the hunger, deprivation and poverty of the immediate post-war years, can the breed be built up again?