"These are very private, uncensored experiences and sentiments of a Red Army Officer as an occupier of Germany. His account of the end of World War II in Germany and the German society that underwent its post-war crisis is also highly instructive. Apart from offering a different view on the spirit and the moral condition of the Red Army which was often represented in an exaggeratedly glorifying manner in the Soviet media, the diary contradicts to the commonly held belief that explains the military success of the Red Army by systematic repressions. Furthermore, the diary depicts the growing self-confidence of the front soldiers Stalin was so afraid of. Gelfand represents a certain group among the conquerors, namely the young officers who were sure that their front experience gave them the right to laugh at a dull instructor, to avert denunciation, to speak plainly to a high-ranged party functionary or to go their own way in occupied Germany. Gelfand’s experience with women also proves the existence of love relations between masculine conquerors and feminine conquered in 1945–46. The diary illustrates that German women searched contact to Soviet soldiers on their part, too, and that not only for material matters or in need of protection."