Leben und Schicksal

I listened it in a short version, adapted by a German radio station – the NDR. It is a work of gigantic proportion it deals with totalitarianism, Jewish identity, science, and the nature of humanity on the the background of the Battle of Stalingrad.

Here the historical context as copy from the Wikipedia article on the book, retrieved on Nov 17th 2013:
Life and Fate takes place during Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, focusing on the battle of Stalingrad. The book begins when Germany lays siege to the city, trying to conquer it. Throughout the book there are references to the decaying city and the damage from aerial bombardments and artillery based around the city. There are also occasions in the Russian novel in which the German blockade is quite noticeable. The characters suffer from starvation and thirst. The book ends with the surrender of German field-marshal Friedrich Paulus’ 6th Army remnants and the return of civilians to the city.
The novel’s characters are a combination of fictional and historical figures. The famous characters include Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler. Many of the characters are more loosely based on a historical figure, or a representative Russian. The main character, Viktor Shtrum, is a “self portrait” of Grossman himself, though Shtrum also incorporates elements of the Jewish physicist Lev Landau, who was dismissed from his job because of the anti-Jewish movement in the Soviet Union. Viktor Shtrum’s opinions and thoughts are really the thoughts and words of Vasily Grossman. Shtrum’s negative thoughts on communism are Grossman’s opinions.
In Life and Fate there are different times when the Nazi concentration camps are mentioned. A long section of Life and Fate is about a German prison camp, where many characters are on their way to the gas chamber to be gassed; then follows a dialogue of ranked Nazi officers inside a new gas chamber who toast its opening. The characters shipped off to Germany had been caught leaving one of the countries under Nazi rule. Grossman’s inclusion is historically accurate, since there are records of many Russians in Nazi labor and death camps. Grossman also includes another German concentration camp where one of his main arguments takes place concerning communism and fascism. Grossman devotes large sections of the book to the prisoners held at Soviet and German labor and concentration camps, which is necessary for a complete World War II experience.