Beyond Barbarossa:: Recent Episodes
Scott Bury
The first English-language podcast to focus on the history of the eastern front of the Second World War.
In July and August, the leaders and delegations from the “Big Three” victors of the Second World War reshape the borders of Europe and set up a new world order.
The USA, UK and USSR have defeated nazi Germany. The Allies control Europe. In July 1945, the leaders Harry Truman, Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin meet outside Berlin to decide what to do with it.
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For the 85th anniversary of the launch of the Eastern Front of World War 2, a replay of the first episode of Beyond Barbarossa.
Video, graphics and maps now available to all! https://youtu.be/rrnoEgVcRvE
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The fighting has ended in Europe—but with millions of displaced people surging in all directions across Europe, it cannot be called peace. While millions of POWs look forward to going home, forced labourers and people of eastern Europe know they have no home to return to. And try to escape the communist yoke.
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When Berlin surrendered, the war in Europe continued for another week—in Czechoslovakia and its capital, Prague.
Sources
Antony Beevor, The Fall of Berlin 1945. New York, NY, USA: Penguin Random House, 2002.
Antony Beevor, The Second World War. New York, NY, USA: Little, Brown and Company, 2012.
Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.
Morse code by Thane Brown
Music composed and recorded by Nicolas Bury
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David Sumner of the Europe at War podcast joins to provide deeper insight into the last major battle in the European Theatre of the Second World War.
Two huge Red Army fronts, the 1st Belorussian and the 1st Ukrainian, crush the nazi capital between them, and bring an end to the Second World War in Europe.
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In the 99th episode of the first English-language podcast that focuses on the full story of the Eastern Front of World War 2, Stalin’s top Marshals, Georgy Zhukov and Ivan Konev, race to be the first to raise the Red Banner over the Reichstag. Who will get there first?
Maps
Map 1: The Red Army’s Vistula to Oder operation
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"From the moment Stalin heard that the Americans were across the Rhine, he knew that the race for Berlin was on.”—Antony Beevor.
WIth the Allies on the Elbe, and the Red Army on the Oder, nazi Germany was being terminally squeezed by April 1945. But before they can drive on the prize, Berlin, the Red Army must take Vienna.
Map 1: The Red Army’s advance, 1944–1945
Map 2: The Red Army on the Oder and Niesse
Map 3: Advance into Vienna
Map 4a: European front line, 1 April 1945
Map 4b: European front line, 15 April 1945
Historical photos
Georgy Zhukov, Marshal of 1st Belorussian Front
Ivan Konev, Marshal, 1st Ukrainian Front
Rodion Malinovsky, Marshal, 2nd Ukrainian Front
Fyodor Tolbukhin, Marshal, 3rd Ukrainian Front
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The #6 Top World War 2 podcast continues following the Red Army’s advance into Hungary and Germany—and the expensive failure of the German Operation Spring Awakening.
Map 1: Front lines in Europe, 1 March 1945
Map 2: Operation Southwind/Sudwind
Map 3a: German plans for Operation Spring Awakening
Map 4: The Soviet counter-attack, The Lake Balaton counter-offensive Map 5: Following Operation Spring Awakening
Map 6: Upper Silesian locations in 2026
Map 7: The front lines, Europe, 1 April 1945
People
Rodion Malinovsky
Fyodor Tolbukhin
Heinz Guderian
Friedrich Schorner
Walther Nehring (right)
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The Red Army penetrates deep into Germany, leading to the redrawing of eastern European borders after.
Map 1: The Oder offensive–March 1945
Map 2: The Lower Silesian Offensive
Map 3: The East Pomeranian Offensive
Map 4a: European fronts, 15 February 1945
Map 4b: European fronts, 15 March 1945
Photos
Marshal Ivan Konev, Commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front
General Walther Wencke, chief of staff, Army Group Vistula, February 1945
Child soldiers in the wehrmacht: Hitler Youth in Breslau (Wroclaw), February 1945
Breslau (Wroclaw) in fighting, 1945
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Why did the Yalta Conference end the way it did? Why did Churchill try an end-run around Roosevelt? Why did Roosevelt try to curry Stalin’s favour? What would this mean to post-war history?
Author Giles Milton joins to discuss some of the Second World War’s most perplexing questions.
People
Author Giles Milton
His latest book, The Stalin Affair: The impossible alliance that won the war
The Big Three: Soviet Premier Josef Stalin, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and U.K. Prime Minister Winston Churchill
Kathleen “Kathy” or “Puff” Harriman, daughter of Roosevelt’s right hand and Ambassador to the USSR in 1945, Averell Harriman
Averell Harriman
Pamela Churchill, WInston Churchill’s daughter-in-law in 1945, and later, Mrs. Averell Harriman
Stalin and Churchill at the Moscow Conference, 1944
Franklin Roosevelt in 1945Map 1: The division of Germany after May 1945
Map 2: Invasion of Poland, 1939Map 3: Poland moves 100 km west
Sources
Giles Milton, author: https://www.gilesmilton.com/
- Books
- podcast: Ministry of Secrets
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Why were the Yalta Conference’s decisions so vague? Why did Stalin get everything he wanted? And why did Roosevelt act so naively?
Giles Milton, bestselling author of The Stalin Affair: The Impossible Alliance that Won the War, joins the podcast today to help understand the relationships that had the greatest impact on the second meeting of the Big Three of the Second World War.
Photos
Author Giles Milton
The Stalin Affair: The Impossible Alliance that Won the War by Giles Milton
The Big Three at Yalta, February 1945. Roosevelt would be dead in two months.
Map 1: Yalta in Crimea, on the Black Sea, site of the 1945 Yalta Conference of the Big Three
Map 2: The tortured road from Saky Airfield to Yalta
Sources
Giles Milton, author: https://www.gilesmilton.com/
- Books
- podcast: Ministry of Secrets
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Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt meet in Malta in the Mediterranean in February 1945, to prepare to meet Josef Stalin in the second Big Three conference on Soviet territory—Yalta.
It was a meeting that shaped the world for decades.
Map 1: Malta to Yalta
Map 2: The Western Front, 1 February 1945
Map 3: The Pacific Theatre, 1 February 1945
Map 4: Poland’s shift west, 1945
Photos
Left: Franklin Roosevelt in 1944. Right: Roosevelt and Churchill at Malta, 2 February 1945.
Averell Harriman and daughter Kathleen
The Vorontsov Palace, quarters for the British delegation
The Livadia Palace, quarters for the American delegation
The Yusupov Palace, housing the Soviet delegation
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The Red Army continues its continual advance onto German soil—and the flight of German civilians and military.
Map 1: The siege of Kongisberg
Map 2: Samland
The Samland Peninsula in 1905, showing city and town names still present in 1945.
Map 3: The (second) East Prussian Offensive
Map 4: The advance across Poland
Historical photos
Franklin Roosevelt meets Winston Churchill in Malta, 2 February 1945
Civilians from Konigsberg walk across frozen Vistula Lagoon, January 1945
CIvilians flee Lodz, Poland, January 1945
Red Army arrives in Lodz, Poland, January 1945
Hitler shakes hands with Col. Claus von Stauffenberg at the “Wolf’s Lair," July 1944.
Ruins of the Wolfsschanze, “Wolf’s Lair,” Hitler’s headquarters in East Prussia
Sources
Antony Beevor, The Second World War. New York, NY, USA: Little, Brown and Company, 2012.
Scott Bury, Walking Out of War: Volume 3 of the Eastern Front Trilogy. Ottawa, Canada: The Written Word, 2017.
Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War, 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017.
David Sumner, Europe at War: A podcast about lesser-known battles of the Second World War. https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/europe-at-war-a-ww2-podcast/id1788043665
Larysa Zariczniak, Wandering the Edge: Ukrainian history and culture https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/wandering-the-edge/id1547149262
David Sumner, Europe at War: A WW2 podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/europe-at-war-a-ww2-podcast/id1788043665
Morse code by Thane Brown
Music composed and recorded by Nicolas Bury
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After 10 shattering blows on the Eastern Front in 1944, the Western Allies and the USSR continue to compress nazi Germany in January 1945.
Map 1: The compressing front
1a: 1 January 1944
1b: 1 January 1945
1c: 15 January 1945
Map 2: The siege of Budapest, January 1945
Map 3: The Vistula-Oder campaign, January 1945
Map 4: The East Prussia offensive
Photos
The Budapest Chain Bridge destroyed, January 1945
Ruins of Warsaw, even in 1947
Source: New York photographer Henry N. Cobb, taken in 1947, via Rare Historical Photos.
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"Budapest lay athwart the main entry route to Austria and Bohemia. It was the main railway hub of the region and also the largest Danubian port. The Red Army could not bypass it. This was the first time in the war that the Red Army had to lay siege to a major city."
The Red Army assaults the capital of nazi Germany’s final remaining partner in the Second World War. The war appears to be almost lost—but that’s seen through hindsight. No one at the time knew that.
Map 1: The Eastern Front, December 1944
Map 2: Germany’s eastern and western fronts, 1 December 1944
Map 3: The Petsamo-Kirkenes operation in northern Finland
Map 4: The Red Army attacks BudapestOperation Konrad II
People
Mihai I, King of Romania, 1944–1947
Miklos Horthy, Regent of Hungary
Miklos Horthy Jr.
Ference Szalasi, nazi dictator of Hungary, 1944–1945
Edmund Veesenmayer, Hitler’s “Special Envoy” to Hungary, 1944–1945
SS-Obergruppenführer Karl Pfeffer-Wildenbruch, commander of IX SS Mountain Corps
Historical photos: Fighting in Budapest
Sources
Antony Beevor, The Second World War. New York, NY, USA: Little, Brown and Company, 2012.
Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War, 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017.
Morse code by Thane Brown
Music composed and recorded by Nicolas Bury
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There was a lot of action on the Eastern Front in the autumn of 1944. In late September, the Red Army and its new allies enter Yugoslavia and connect with communist Partisans led by a man called Tito. The results will echo across the decades.
Map 1: The Balkan military theatre, September 1944–January 1945Map 2: The Bulgarian incursionMap 3: The Battle of BelgradePhotosThe Lockheed P-38 Lightning and the Focke-Wulf fw189
The Yakovlev Yak-9 in flight
The Yakovlev Yak-9 in the Russian military museum
Josip Broz, a.k.a. Tito, far right, with his staff.
SourcesAntony Beevor, The Second World War. New York, NY, USA: Little, Brown and Company, 2012.
Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.
Giles Milton, The Stalin Affair: The impossible alliance that won the war. New York, NY, USA: Henry Holt and Company, 2022.
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War, 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017.
Morse code by Thane Brown
Music composed and recorded by Nicolas Bury
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In October 1944, the Red Army entered East Prussia, the heart of German militarism. Horrific war crimes ensued.
Map 1: The Red Army’s advances all across the broad frontMap 2a: European Theatre, 1 October 1944Map 2b: European Theatre, 1 November 1944 Map 3a: The Pacific Theatre, 1 October 1944Map 3b: The Pacific Theatre, 1 November 1944 Map 4: The Gumbinnen Operation Historical photos Konigsberg Castle before World War 1
German officers find evidence of massacre at Nemmersdorf, East Prussia
Civilians killed at Nemmersdorf, 1944
SourcesAntony Beevor, The Second World War. New York, NY, USA: Little, Brown and Company, 2012.
Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.
Pat McTaggart, "Goldap Operation: Soviets in the Prussian Heartland,” in WWII History, vol. 14, No. 2, February 2015. Cited in Warfare History Network, February 2015, https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/goldap-operation-soviets-in-the-prussian-heartland/
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War, 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017.
Morse code by Thane Brown
Music composed and recorded by Nicolas Bury
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In the autumn of 1944, nation after nation abandons the cruel, insane Axis to join the Western Allies or USSR: Romania, Bulgaria, Slovkia … as Finland signs an armistice with the USSR. With the Red Army on the border of Germany itself, Hungary faces the choice: to fight on with, or against, the nazis.
Map 1: The Red Army invades Slovakia
The Dukla Pass is to the right.
Map 2: The Battle of Debrecen
PhotosGeneral (later Marshal) Rodion Malinovsky, 1944
General (later Marshal) Fyodor Tolbukhin, 1944
Marshal Ivan Konev, 1945
Milos Horthy, Regent of Hungary, 1944
Ferenc Szalisi, Leader of the Hungarian Nation, 1944
General Heinz Guderian, Inspector-General of the Army, 1944
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By the autumn of 1944, everyone could see which way the Second World War was going — even the Axis commanders. Still, they were able to hold the Red Army back in key locations like Courland and Memel.
Map 1: The Courland and Memel pockets, to the end of 1944
Map 2: The Memel pocket, 1944
Image 1: Hovhannes Bagramyan in 1955
Image 2: Army of Worn Soles, volume 1 of the Eastern Front Trilogy
https://www.amazon.com/Army-Worn-Soles-Scott-Bury/dp/0987914197/
Image 3: Walking Out of War, volume 3 of the Eastern Front Trilogy
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1987846052
SourcesScott Bury, Army of Worn Soles: Volume 1 of The Eastern Front Trilogy.Ottawa: The Written Word Publishing Co., 2014.
Scott Bury, Walking Out of War: Volume 3 of The Eastern Front Trilogy. Ottawa: The Written Word Publishing Co., 2014.
Prit Buttar, The Reckoning: The Defeat of Army Group South, 1944 . Okford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2020.
Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.
Morse code by Thane Brown
Music composed and recorded by Nicolas Bury
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Describing the Eastern Front chronologically gets very difficult in the second half of 1944, because there’s so much happening everywhere, all at the same time.
After the Warsaw Rising, as described in Episode 83, the Red Army surged past its borders into Finland, Estonia, Romania, Bulgaria, and farther.
Meanwhile, the Western Allies are taking France, Belgium and Italy from Hitler. But there is still a lot of fighting and death to come.
Map 1: The Gothic Line, Italy
Map 2: The Continuation War ends, Finland
Map 3: The advance of the Red Army, August 1943–December 1944
Maps 4A and 4B: Advances of the front lines, east and west
4A: 15 August 1944
4B: 1 October 1944
Sources
Antony Beevor, The Second World War. London, UK: Little, Brown and Co., 2012.
Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Stalin’s Revenge: Operation Bagration and the Annihilation of Army Group Centre. Barnsley, South Yorkshire, UK: Pen and Sword Books, 2009.
Morse code by Thane Brown
Music composed and recorded by Nicolas Bury
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Today, Beyond Barbarossa fulfills a promised made at the start of this podcast: a meaningful donation to help refugees of Russia’s unjustifiable war of aggression against Ukraine, to the Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal.
We’re joined by Valeriy Kostyuk, Executive Director of the Canada-Ukraine Foundation, which runs the appeal.
LinksCanada-Ukraine Foundation
Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal
Medical javelinsThornhill Medical and their MOVES SLC mobile life-support system.
In August 1944, the Red Army steamrolled across eastern Europe. Yet when Warsaw rose up against the nazi occupiers, they found themselves alone.
Historic photosTadeusz Bor-Komorowski (right), Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Home Army
AK fighter with flamethrower
Home Army soldiers from Kolegium "A" of Kedyw formation on Stawki Street in the Wola District of Warsaw, September 1944. Source: Wikipedia Commons
Jewish POWs freed by AK
The remains of Warsaw after the Germans “withdrew.”
SourcesAntony Beevor, The Second World War. London, UK: Little, Brown and Co., 2012.
Norman Davies, Rising ’44: The Battle for Warsaw. London, UK: Macmillan, 2004.
Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.
Anthony Tucker-Jones,Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017.
Music by Nicolas Bury.
Morse code from Thane Brown.
In this special episode of the podcast on the Eastern Front of World War Two, we go beyond Beyond Barbarossa and beyond the end of the Second World War.
80 years ago to the day of this publication a handsome young man approached Canadian media and officials with proof that the Soviet Union was spying on its allies. The Cold War was on.
Former Soviet cypher clerk Igor Gouzenko, hooded to protect his identity, being interviewed by Associated Press reporter Saul Pett in Montreal in 1954.
The Gouzenkos’ apartment building on Somerset Street in central Ottawa. There is no plaque commemorating Igor Gouzenko. (Photo by Scott Bury, 2025.)
Igor Gouzenko in Canada, 1946.
Sources
Winston Churchill, “The Sinews of Peace,” speech given at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, U.S.A., 5 March 1946.
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/winstonchurchillsinewsofpeace.htm
J.L. Granatstein and David Stafford, Spy Wars: Espionage and Canada from Gouzenko to Glasnost. Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1990.
John Sawatsky, Gouzenko: The Untold Story. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1984
Wikipedia, Gouzenko Affair. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gouzenko_Affair
Wondery Podcasts, “The Spy Who, Season 7: The Spy Who Started the Cold War” https://wondery.com/shows/the-spy-who/season/7/
In summer 1944, "the Red Army’s seemingly unstoppable streamroller took Stanislav in the Carpathian foothills, Bialystok in northern Poland, Dvinsk in Latvia and the Siauliai (also spelt Shaulyai) rail junction between Riga and East Prussia.” — Anthony Tucker-Jones.
Even so, the steamroller suffered ferocious mauling.
If you can transcribe the morse code signal during “What else is happening in the war,” send an email to scott@beyondbarbarossa.ca. If you’re correct, I will send you a free autographed copy of The Eastern Front Trilogy.
Map 1a: The Eastern Front, July 1944
Map 1b: The front, August 1944
Map 2: The Lvov-Sandomierz Offensive, detail
Map 3: The Narva Offensive
Music by Nicolas Bury.
Morse code from Thane Brown.
Some sound effects from Zapsplat.com.
Stalin’s one-two punch against Germany is the Lvov-Sandomierz offensive, hitting in Ukraine as Bagration smashes into Byelorussia. It also lays bare the brutality within the Red Army.
Map 1: The Byelorussian Balcony
Map 2: The Lvov-Sandomierz Operation
Map 3: The Eastern Front, 15 June 1944
Map 4: The Eastern Front, 15 July 1944
Map 5: The Eastern Front, 15 August 1944
Ivan Konev, commander, 1st Ukrainian Front
Lt. General Pavel Rybalko, commander, 3rd Guards Tank Army
Josef Harpe, Commander, Army Group North Ukraine
Sources:
Antony Beevor, The Second World War. London, UK: Little, Brown and Co., 2012.
Prit Buttar, Retribution: The Soviet Reconquest of Central Ukraine, 1943. Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2019.
Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Stalin’s Revenge: Operation Bagration and the Annihilation of Army Group Centre. Barnsley, South Yorkshire, UK: Pen and Sword Books, 2009.
Did the Lend-Lease program save the Soviet Union? For the Season 3 finale, Angus Wallace of the World War 2 podcast joins to offer a nuanced interpretation.
Angus Wallace, host and producer of The World War 2 podcast
The Lend-Lease Act
British Valentine tanks to be sent to USSR under Lend-Lease, 1942.
The Bell P-39 Aircobra, one of the fighters the U.S. sent to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease.
A Hawker Hurricane fighter sent for the Red Air Force.
Fleets of Studebaker, Ford and Chevrolet trucks sent to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease.
U.S. jeeps sent to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease made Life magazine.
The Western Allies sent millions of tons of food aid to the Soviet Union during World War 2.
The Red Army moved tanks to the front by rail, on flatcars, with locomotives often supplied by the U.S. Much of the rail was also supplied by the U.S.
The “Big Three,” Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, at the Yalta Conference in 1945. Roosevelt was clearly unwell by this point. This conference decided the post-war division of Europe between West and East, meaning USSR.
MapsMap 1: Lend-Lease shipping routes
Lend-Lease shipping literally spanned the globe.
Map 2: The Arctic route (polar projection)
Map 3: The Persian Corridor.
Ships arrived in Persian Gulf ports, then goods were transshipped by train through Iran to be loaded onto ships again at the Caspian Sea.
Map 4: The Pacific route.
Note the proximity to Japan as ships approach Vladivostok in the Russian Far East.
The USSR’s answer to D-Day in June 1944 takes the Germans by surprise—and annihilates a whole army group.
Map 1: The Vyborg-Petrozavodsk Offensive, the end of the Continuation War against Finland
Map 2: The "Byelorussian Balcony”
Map 3: Attack on Vitebsk
Map 4: Rokossovsky’s attack on Bobruisk
Map 5: Attack on Minsk
Photos
Minsk, July 1944
Destroyed German armour on road to Minsk
German POWs in Moscow, July 1944
Soviet and Polish Home Army (AK) soldiers together in Vilnius, July 1944. The AK soldiers were then arrested by the NKVD and sent to Gulags.
Author Craig W.H. Luther joins us to compare two anniversaries on the same date, 22 June, three years apart: Operations Barbarossa in 1941, and Operation Bagration in 1944.
Craig W.H. Luther
The First Day on the Eastern Front: Germany Invades the Soviet Union, June 22, 1941
Barbarossa Unleashed: The German Blitzkrieg through Central Russia to the Gates of Moscow, June–December 1941
Guderian’s Panzers: From Triumph to Defeat on the Eastern Front, 1941
Map 1: Operation Barbarossa, 22 June 1941
Map 2: The Byelorussian balcony, June 1944
Map 3: Operation Blue, summer 1942
Craig W.H. Luther Archive: https://www.barbarossa1941.com/
A major army, 400,000 strong, made a major difference in World War 2. Yet it doesn’t get enough attention in the West (nor, unfortunately, on this podcast). It’s the Armia Krajowa, the Polish Home Army. From exposing the Holocaust, to breaking the German Enigma Code, to helping destroy V-2 rockets, the AK bridged the Eastern and Western Fronts of the Second World War.
Map 1: German invasion of Poland, September 1939
Map 2: Soviet invasion of Poland, September 1939
Historic photos
Flag of the Armia Krajowa, Polish Home Army
Gen. Michal Tadeusz Tokarzewski-Karaszewicz second-in-command of the Army of Warsaw
Wladyslaw Sikorski, Prime Minister of Polish Government-in-Exile
Elzbieta Zawacka, “Agent Zo"
Elzbieta Zawacka’s story, Agent Zo by Clare Mulley
Jewish resistance fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, 1943
SS burns the Warsaw Ghetto, 1943
SS transports Jewish survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto to extermination camps
AK fighters
Polish Boy Scouts in AK, 1944
Women members of AK
Enigma, the German coding machine
The three Polish cryptologists who broke the German Enigma code: left to right, Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Rozycki, and Henryk Zygalski
Sources:
Antony Beevor, The Second World War. London, UK: Little, Brown and Co., 2012.
Richard Lukas, The Forgotten Holocaust. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1986, and University of Kentucky Press, 1986.
Home Army Museum/Muzeum Armii Krajowej, https://muzeum-ak.pl/
Wikipedia, various pages.
It’s been a year of stunning, swift change on the Eastern Front of World War 2. And momentous events are coming soon — so it’s high time for a recap of the past year.
LinksEpisode 50: Looking back, taking stock https://beyondbarbarossa.podbean.com/e/looking-back-taking-stock-episode-50/
The Battle(s) of Kursk
- Episode 51: Summer 1943 planshttps://beyondbarbarossa.podbean.com/e/summer-1943-plans-season-3-opener-episdoe-51/
- Episode 52: Zitadelle, the Battle of Kursk, Part 2https://beyondbarbarossa.podbean.com/e/zitadelle—the-battle-of-kursk-part-2-episode-52/
- Episode 53: The Battle of Kursk, part 3https://beyondbarbarossa.podbean.com/e/the-battle-of-kursk-part-3-episode-53/
Episode 67: The Red Army has the momentum https://beyondbarbarossa.podbean.com/e/the-red-army-has-the-momentum-episode-67/
Friedrich Paulus, commander of the German 6th Army in 1942, the only German Field Marshal ever to surrender
MapsMap 1: The Axis’ high-water mark, Europe
Map 2: Axis’ high-water mark, Asia-Pacific
Map 3: North Africa, summer 1942
Map 4: Germans advance to the Volga
Map 5: Operation Winter Storm
Map 6: 4th Battle of Kharkiv
Map 7: Battle of Kursk
Map 8: Operation Little Saturn
Map 9: Rzhev Salient
Map 10: Korsun/Cherkassy pocket
Map 11: Crushing blows: the front lines in the Eastern Front, April 1944
On 2 May 1945, Red Army soldiers raised the Soviet Red Banner with hammer and sickle on the cupola of the Reichstag in Berlin. For the 80th anniversary of that famous photograph, Anthony Tucker-Jones joins the ‘cast to discuss the Fall of Berlin.
“Raising a Flag over the Reichstag” shows Red Army soldier Aleksei Kovalev hoisting the Red Banner over the cupola of the Reichstag. This was staged on 2 May 1945, after the Red Army had taken full control of the building.
Historian and author Anthony Tucker-Jones
Two of his books
Learn more about Anthony Tucker-Jones on his website.
Map 1: Three Red Army Fronts advance on Berlin
Map 2: The final battle for Berlin
Movies cited:
- Downfall, in German with subtitles
- Come and See, in Russian
This episode, we jump forward for the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe. To guide us through the battles for Berlin, we are joined by the author of The Fall of Berlin: The Final Days of Hitler’s Evil Regime.
Author Anthony Tucker-Jones
His website and books: https://atuckerjones.com/
Maps
Map 1: The front lines, 15 April 1945
Map 2: The front lines, 1 May 1945
Map 3: Final operations, April-May 1945
Map 4: The Red Army’s Vistula-Oder offensive
Map 5: 1st Belorussian Front’s drive through the Seelow Heights to Berlin
Map 6: The battles for Berlin at the end of April 1945
Books
In 1944, the Red Army delivers its third crushing blow on the Axis forces in eastern Europe: two major offensives to recapture the rest of Ukraine, and the Crimean peninsula.
Map 1: Northern Black Sea coast and southern Ukraine
The range where the two mighty blows were delivered. Ploesti, Romania is to the far left of the map, just north of Bucharest.
Map 2:
Map by Scott Bury
Map 3: The Red Army’s Crimean offensive, 1944
Image 1: Issa Pliyev, Commander, Cavalry-Mechanized Group
The Red Army, 4th Guards Cavalry Corps advancing across southern Ukraine, 1944
Miklós Horthy, Regent of Hungary, with Adolf Hitler in Budapest, 1938
The Red Army marches into “liberated” Odesa, 1944
Note the women soldiers in the ranks.
Sources:
Prit Buttar, The Reckoning: The Defeat of Army Group South, 1944. Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2020.
Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK, The History Press, 2017.
Wikipedia: The Crimean Offensive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_offensive
— The Odesa Offensive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odessa_Offensive
From the beginning of Russia’s illegal and brutal assault on sovereign Ukraine, Ukraine: The Latest has covered the war every week day. Francis Dearnley, Executive Editor for Audio for Ukraine: The Latest, joins the podcast to look at the historical links and parallels with the Eastern Front of World War 2.
Francis Dearnley, Executive Editor for Audio, Ukraine: The Latest, from The Telegraph
Ukraine: The Latest, daily podcast from The Telegraph
David Knowles, creator of the Ukraine: The Latest podcast
Links
Ukraine: The Latest
- on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/ukraine-the-latest/id1612424182
- and available on all major podcast platforms.
Francis Dearnley’s interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Winston Churchill’s World War II memoirs
Guy Sajer’s The Forgotten Soldier
Antony Beevor’s Berlin 1945
Episode 63: at the end of 1943, the situation for nazi Germany and communist USSR on the Eastern Front is radically different from the end of 1942. Plus, the Cairo and Tehran Conferences promise to reshape the geo-political world.
Map 1: The Red Army advances to, and past the Wotan Line
Map 2: The front lines, 15 November 1943
Map 3: The front lines, 31 December 1943
Historical photos: The German Panther (Panzer V) vs. the Soviet T-34-85
Soviet photo loading artillery at Nikopol bridgehead
Sources:
Antony Beevor, The Second World War. London, UK: Little, Brown and Co., 2012.
Prit Buttar, Retribution: The Soviet Reconquest of Central Ukraine, 1943. Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2019.
Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.
Beyond Barbarossa is no longer the only podcast focusing on the Eastern Front of World War II. David Sumner, host and producer of the Europe at War podcast, joins to discuss the Battle of the Halbe Pocket.
The Europe at War podcast on all platforms: https://pohttps://tr.ee/faCigcYaE5
David Sumner, podcaster
Map: The Battle of the Halbe Pocket, April 1945
Photos from David Sumner
The Halbe forest, 2025
A defensive hole dug in the floor of the Halbe Forest
A bullet shell with the round still inside it, the outer shell which corroded from being in the ground for eight decades.
The comb David Sumner found in the Halbe Forest
From the Halbe Pocket battle
General Theodor Busse
General Walther Wenke
Arden nazi Ferdinand Shorner
Russian occupation of Ukraine today is not the first time. Here are some readings that can make it real for today’s listeners.
Map: Ukraine under occupation, 1941–1943
Source: Ukraine, A Historical Atlas by Paul Robert Magosci and Geoffrey J. Matthews
Sources
Lubomyr Luciuk, The Galicia Division: They Fought for Ukraine. The Kashtan Press, 2023.
Scott Bury, Under the Nazi Heel. Ottawa, ON: The Written Word Communications Co., 2016.
A special episode of Beyond Barbarossa.
What happened in Washington DC on 28 February 2025 has echoes of 1938, and ominous omens for the future.
In the north and the south, the Red Amy makes great advances in the Eastern Front in February 1944.
Map 1: The Eastern Front, February 1944
Map 2: Popov’s Baltic Front pushes the Germans back to Lake Peipus
Map 3: German forces in the Dnipro Bend, February 1944
Map 4: The European theatre at the end of February 1944.
Map 5: The Pacific theatre
Markian Popov
Nikolai Vatutin
The Chindits in Burma, 1944
In January and February 1944, Stalin's "broad front" strategy takes hold and the Red Army gains the momentum in the war on the Eastern Front.
Map 1: The Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket
Map 2: The Advance on Narva
Map 3: The Battle of Narva and Lake Peipus
What looks like "Hapba" is Cyrillic script for "Narva." The inset shows the southern end of Lake Peipus and the Red Army's temporary bridgehead on the west side.
Map 4: The Panther Line
Map 5: The breakout to Lysyanka
Map 6a: The Eastern Front 15 January 1944
Map 6b: The Eastern Front 15 February 1944
Image 1: Ivan S. Konev, commander of the 2nd Ukrainian Front
Image 2: Nikolai Vatutin, commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front
SourcesAntony Beevor, The Second World War. London, UK: Little, Brown and Co., 2012.
Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.
Orest Subtelny, Ukraine: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988.
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin's War 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017.
Wikipedia, various pages.
The first two of ten "crushing blows" against the German invaders of the USSR in 1944: Zhitomyr and Leningrad. Map 1: The Zhitomyr-Berdichiv Offensive
Map 2: Cherkassy or Kherson Pocket
Map 3: Leningrad, 1941–1943
Map 4: Leningrad lifeline
Map 5: Operation Iskra
Map 6: Operation Polar Star
Map 7: Liberation of Leningrad, push to Panther Line
SourcesAntony Beevor, The Second World War. London, UK: Little, Brown and Co., 2012.
Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.
Anna Reid, Leningrad: Tragedy of a City Under Siege, 1941–44. Toronto: Allen Lane Canada, 2011.
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin's War 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017.
Prit Buttar, Retribution: The Soviet Reconquest of Central Ukraine, 1943. Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2019.
What was the USSR doing between September 1939 and June 1941? It was allied with nazi Germany, of course. Historian Roger Moorhouse, author of books including The Devils' Alliance, describes the lasting impact of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, and the strategic factors that ended it.
Roger Moorhouse
The Devils' Alliance
Roger Moorhouse's books: https://www.rogermoorhouse.com/books
Map: The division of eastern Europe according to the secret protocols of the pact
The nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact of 1939 gave Hitler and the nazis the green light to invade Poland and start World War 2. Two weeks later, Stalin's Red Army joined the nazis in dismembering Poland.
Historian and author Roger Moorhouse has dived deep into this notorious but poorly understood alignment in The Devils' Alliance: Hitler's Pact with Staline, 1939–1941. He joins the podcast in a two-part discussion of the importance of the agreement between the 20th century's two bloodiest tyrannies.
Roger Moorhouse
The Devils' Alliance
Roger Moorhouse's books: https://www.rogermoorhouse.com/books
The famous cartoon by David Low
Hitler: "The scum of the earth, I believe?"
Stalin: "The bloody assassin of the workers, I presume?"
Map: The division of eastern Europe according to the secret protocols of the pact
Looking for a break in the Christmas season sweetness? Beyond Barbarossa returns you to the Eastern Front in December 1942. Hitler and Stalin's mutual stubbornness collide on the Russian steppe.
For the Germans of the 6th Army, Christmas 1942 was a hungry Yule in the freezing Cauldron.
Map 1: Operation Uranus, November and December 1942
Map 2: Operation Winter Storm: The German relief attempt
Map 3: Operation Winter Storm stalled
Failure: Luftwaffe supplies the trapped 6th Army in the Kessel
Failure: Operation Winter Storm
German soldiers in the Kessel/Cauldron
Red Army soldier writes home, December 1942
By December, the Red Army soldiers' morale was very different from the Germans'.
Author Clare Mulley and I discuss her latest book, the story of one of the Allies' most valuable intelligence agents, Elzbieta Zawacka, known as Agent Zo.
Visit Clare Mulley's website: https://claremulley.com/
Clare Mulley's books:
The Woman Who Saved the Children
The Spy Who Loved
The Women Who Flew for Hitler
Agent Zo: The Untold Story of a Fearless World War II Resistance Fighter
Map 1: Molotov and Ribbentrop's division of eastern Europe
Map 2: German invasion of Poland, 1 September 1941
Map 3: Soviet invasion of Poland, 17 September 1943
In honour of Remembrance Day, 11 November 2024, this is a special episode available to all.
A reading from Army of Worn Soles: Volume 1 of The Eastern Front Trilogy.
Available exclusively on Amazon.
It's hard to believe we've reached the 60th episode!
This is a big one: the Red Army reaches, and crosses the German East Wall along the Dnipro River in Ukraine. At a cost, of course. Let me know what you think.
Crossing the Dnipro
Map 2: The Bukrin Bend
Sources:
Prit Buttar, Retribution: The Soviet Reconquest of Central Ukraine, 1943. Osford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2020.
Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017
Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk of the Royal Military College of Canada and University of Toronto returns to describe the reality for eastern European people under occupation during the Second World, and draws the line from then to today.
Latest book:
Enemy Archives: Soviet Counterinsurgency Operations and the Ukrainian Nationalist Movement – Selections from the Secret Police Archives
Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2023.
Available from Amazon and McGill-Queen's University Press
Professor of political geography at the Royal Military College of Canada and Senior Research Fellow of the Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto, shares his knowledge and insight into the experience of Ukraine under occupation by nazi and Soviet forces during the Second World War.
Map: Ukrainian lands during World War II
Source: Ukraine: A Historical Atlas, by Paul Robert Magosci and Geoffrey Matthews
Image 1: Dr. Luciuk's latest publication, Enemy Archives.
With Volodymyr Viatrovych. Available from Amazon and McGill-Queen's University Press.
Image 2: An UPA unit in the Carpathian Mountains collecting intelligence.
Image 3: Galicia Division machine gun unit at the Battle of Brody
Smolensk has a war history that is far more significant than its size would suggest. In September 1943, it was a key to Soviet Red Army strategy, and for the German defence.
Map 1: Battle of Smolensk, 1943
Map 2: Operation Suvorov
Map 2: Smolensk region
This gives you an idea of where the smaller towns are in relation to Smolensk.
Photo 1: Gen. Yeremenko (right) with Nikita Khrushchev (left) during the Battle of Stalingrad.
Photo 2: Yeremenko in about 1970
Photo 3: Gen. Vasily Sokolovsky in 1946
Sources:
Antony Beevor, The Second World War. London, UK: Little, Brown and Co., 2012.
Robert Forczyk, Smolensk 1943: The Red Army's Relentless Advance. Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2019.
Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smolensk_operation.
After the Battle of Kursk, Stalin and the Stavka set their sights on recapturing Smolensk, and farther south, the wealth of the Donbas and eastern Ukraine.
Map 1: The Chernihiv-Poltava Offensive
Map 2: The Red Army perspective
I guess you have to be a Red Army officer to understand this one.
Photos:
Ivan Konev, Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1945
General Nikolai Vatutin, Commander of the Voronezh Front, 1943
Konstantin Rokossovsky, Marshal of the USSR.
When Germany attacked Kursk in 1943, they found an enemy that had prepared a complex strategy, and assembled immense forces poised to act as soon as the German attacks stalled. This strategy began with three operations named for three Russian generals from history: Kutuzov, Rumyantsev, and Suvorov — the practice for Operation Bagration.
Map 1: Operation Kutuzov and revenge for Kursk
Map 2: Operation Rumyantsev and the Fourth Battle of Kursk
Map 3: Operation Suvorov, the liberation of Smolensk
This was armoured warfare at its most brutal, with tanks slugging it out at point-blank range. The tanks were as close as 10–15m. Once hit, many of the crews had little chance of bailing out and were splattered all over the insides of their tanks. Those who did try to escape their blazing tanks were mown down and their lifeless bodies left obscenely charred and shrivelled.
Map 1: The Kursk Salient
Map 2: The battle of Kursk — the southern sector
Map 3: The northern sector
Map 4: Another look at the battle of Prokhorovka
Sources:
Ian Baxter, Kursk 1943: Last German Offensive in the East. Havertown, PA: Casemate Publihsers (US), 2019.
Antony Beevor, The Second World War. London, UK: Little, Brown and Co., 2012.
Robin Cross, Citadel: The Battle of Kursk. UK: Lume Books, 2018.
Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017
Wikipedia: The Battle of Kursk.
Katyusha sound effect by Sound Effect by kuiycb from Pixabay
Some tank sound effects by Dennis from Pixabay
The iconic battle on the Kursk salient in July 1943 builds into the greatest confrontation between armoured forces ever — and a four-part series on Beyond Barbarossa.
Map 1: The Kursk salient, 5 to 11 July 1943
Map 2: The northern sector
Source: OnWar.com
Map 3: The southern sector
Sources:
Ian Baxter, Kursk 1943: Last German Offensive in the East. Haverstown, PA, USA: Casemate Publishers (US), 2019.
Antony Beevor, The Second World War. London, UK: Little, Brown and Co., 2012.
Robin Cook, Citadel: The Battle of Kursk. London, UK: Lume Books, 2018.
Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017
Wikipedia: The Battle of Kursk.
What I thought would be a single episode has turned into a series. Here is Part 2 of the biggest tank battle in history — or at least, of the Second World War.
Map 1: The Eastern Front, 1943-44
Map 2: Battle of Kursk
Map 3: Another map of the Battle of Kursk
Image 1: The Tiger heavy tank
Image 2: The Panther tank
Image 3: The Ferdinand or "Elefant" self-propelled gun
Restored Elefant at the United States Army Ordnance Training and Heritage Center. Source: Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elefant
Three seasons! 51 episodes!
This season begins with a catch-up on the Eastern Front, and the planning that led to the biggest battle in the history of warfare: Operation Zitadelle and the Battle of Kursk.
Map: The Kursk salient, spring 1943
Source: Wikipedia
Production and loss tables
Table 1: Comparative armaments production, January 1941 – December 1942
1941 1942 GermanyUSSRGermany USSRRifles1,359.0002,421,0001,370,0004,049,000Machine guns96,000149,000117,000356,000Artillery3,80041,00041,000128,000Tanks + self-propelled guns8,4006,6006,20024,700Combat aircraft 12,40011,60021,700 German and Soviet war production. 1942–1944 (thousands of units)
1942 1943 1944 GermanyUSSRGermanyUSSRGermanyUSSRRIfles + submachine guns1,6024,6192,5094,8013,0853,006Machine guns117356263458509439Artillery4112874130148122Tanks + self-propelled guns62411241829Combat aircraft122219303433Soviet tank and self-propelled gun losses
19411942194319441945Tanks and self-propelled guns available28,20035,70047,90059,10048,900Losses Heavy tanks9001,2001,300900900Medium tanks2,3006,60014,70013,8007,500Light tanks17,3007,2006,4002,300300Self-propelled guns01001,1006,8005,000Source: Mawdsley, Thunder in the East, 2016
Images:
The German Tiger tank,Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger Ausf. E
Tiger tank in Kharkiv, 1943
The German Panther tank, Panzerkampfwagen V Panther
Source: Wikipedia.
Sources:
Antony Beevor, The Second World War. London, UK: Little, Brown and Co., 2012.
Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017
Wikipedia: The Battle of Kursk.
At the midpoint of the Second World War on the Eastern Front, it's time to take a look at the journey so far.
On 25 April 1945, 700 bombers and fighters of the U.S. 15th Air Force raided Linz, Germany, the town where Adolf Hitler grew up. Although neither the air crews nor the people of Linz could know it, it would be the last major Allied air raid of the Second World War. And one of the costliest in terms of U.S. casualties.
Mike Croissant's uncle Ellsworth Croissant was one of the bombardiers on that air raid. That connection led the retired CIA analyst to write a book about it: Bombing Hitler's Hometown: The Untold Story of the Last Mass Bomber Raid of World War II in Europe.
It's a very personal story that brings the reader onto the airplanes. Author Mike Croissant tells us about the raid, its aftermath, the people there, and how he came to write it.
You can read my review of the book on my blog, https://writtenword.ca/2024/04/the-last-major-air-raid-of-world-war-ii/.
You can get the book in electronic and hardcover formats from Kensington Books.
Author Mike Croissant describes the family connection that inspired his research into the last mass bombing raid of the Second World War in Europe.
His book, Bombing HItler's Hometown: The Untold Story of the Last Mass Bomber Raid of World War II in Europe, was published in March. It's available in better bookstores and through online e-tailers through Kensington Publishing.
Mussolini was not happy about being in the Axis by 1943. And Stalin refused to attend the Casablanca Conference with Churchill and Roosevelt. Meetings of the summit and other senior leaders of the Axis and Allied powers through the war show the evolution of each side's war aims between 1939 and 1945.
Map: The Kursk salient, spring 1943
Image 1: Roosevelt and Churchill aboard the HMS Prince of Wales at the Argentia Conference, August 1941.
Seated: President Franklin D. Roosevelt (left) and Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Standing directly behind them: Admiral Ernest J. King, USN; General George C. Marshall, U.S. Army; General Sir John Dill, British Army; Admiral Harold R. Stark, USN; and Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, RN. At rear: Harry Hopkins talking with W. Averell Harriman. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Image 2: The Second Moscow Conference, August 1942
Left to right: UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill, USSR Premier Josef Stalin, and W. Averrell Harriman, representing President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Office of War Information Photograph (Wikimedia Commons).
Sources:
Antony Beevor, The Second World War. London, UK: Little, Brown and Co., 2012.
Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.
Sean McMeekin, Stalin's War. New York: Basic Books, 2021.
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017
Wikipedia: various pages.
Sound effects by Zapsplat.
In April 1943, Jewish people forced into the grossly overcrowded ghetto in Warsaw rose up against the nazis, killing hundreds of SS soldiers. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising failed, but its memory lives on.
SS members force Jewish people out of shelters for deportation to death camps, spring, 1943. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
A map of the Warsaw Ghetto, the area nazi oppressors forced Jewish people to remain in.
SS-Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop (center), commanded of the SS brigade that destroyed the Warsaw Ghetto.
In April and May, the SS systematically destroyed every building in the Warsaw Ghetto.
SS soldiers continuing to destroy the Warsaw Ghetto, May 1943. Image source: Wikimedia Commons.
"Waves of stone, crushed bricks, a sea of brick. There isn’t a single wall intact — the beast’s anger was terrible." — Soviet journalist Vasily Grossman, Warsaw, 1945.
After their stunning, bloody defeat at Stalingrad, the Germans withdrew west to the Donets River in Ukraine, and the Red Army swept ahead as much as 800 km. But the Germans were still a potent force, and in March 1943, were ready to retake Kharkiv.
Map 1: The counter-attack in the Donbas
Map 2: The advances on Kharkiv
Map 3: Withdrawal from the Rzhev salient
Maps 4 and 5: The front in March 1943
After the 6th Army's surrender at Stalingrad, rapid, far-ranging mobility returns to the war on the Eastern Front, as German and Soviet forces advance and retreat hundreds of kilometres.
Map 1: The Kuban Bridgehead
Map 2: Operation Star
Map 3: Von Manstein's counter-offensive
A Tiger tank near Kharkiv, 1943
Source: Pinterest.
The Red Army finally scores two major victories in January 1943 — in the two cities where it mattered most.
The surrender of the Sixth Army:
https://stalingrad.net/german-hq/surrender/surrender.htm
Map 1: End of the battle of Stalingrad
Map 2: Operation Iskra
Source: Wikipedia
Photos: The surrender at Stalingrad
Left to right: Field Marshal F. Paulus, C-in-C, 6th Army; Gen. W. Schmidt, Chief of Staff; Col. Adam, Paulus' adjutant.
General Konstantin Rokossovsky, commander of the Don Front that captured the 6th Army in Stalingrad.
The aftermath in Stalingrad. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
The Germans in the Stalingrad cauldron reject the Soviets' final offer of surrender. The Red Army responds by crushing the cauldron.
Map 1: The end of the Kessel
Source: Military History Now
The ultimatum to Stalingrad:
https://www.stalingrad.net/russian-hq/the-russian-ultimatum/rusultimatum.html
Images:
3-engine German transport plane lands at Pitomnik airfield.
Red Army soldiers attack in the ruins of Stalingrad.
Sources:
Antony Beevor, Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege 1942–1943. Penguin Books, 1998.
Antony Beevor, The Second World War. London, UK: Little, Brown and Co., 2012.
William Craig, Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad. Old Saybrook, CT, USA: Konecky & Konecky, 1973.
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017
Sound effects by Zapsplat.
For the Germans of the 6th Army, Christmas 1942 was a hungry Yule in the freezing Cauldron.
Map 1: Operation Uranus, November and December 1942
Map 2: Operation Winter Storm: The German relief attempt
Map 3: Operation Winter Storm stalled
Failure: Luftwaffe supplies the trapped 6th Army in the Kessel
Failure: Operation Winter Storm
German soldiers in the Kessel/Cauldron
Red Army soldier writes home, December 1942
By December, the Red Army soldiers' morale was very different from the Germans'.
Warfare usually slows down in winter. Not so in Russia in 1942. The Germans launch another huge attack to relieve the 6th Army in Stalingrad. But the Red Army has its own ideas.
Map 1: The long, long German lines to Stalingrad
Map 2: Operation Uranus
Source: Awesome stories
Map 3a: Operation Winter Storm
Source: https://alchetron.com/cdn/operation-winter-storm-ee2a434c-cf0a-4ef4-a3c3-e87d2e84c08-resize-750.jpeg
Map 3b: Operation Winter Storm fails
Source: WWIIincolor.com
Historical pictures
A Panzer III on the steppe in southern Russia, December 1942
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Soviet forces in southern Russia, winter 1942.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Sources:
Antony Beevor, Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege 1942–1943. Penguin Books, 1998.
Antony Beevor, The Second World War. London, UK: Little, Brown and Co., 2012.
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017
Sound effects by Zapsplat.
As three Red Army Fronts move on the German flanks west and south of Stalingrad, two more attack the Rzhev-Vyazma salient west of Moscow. Is it a diversion, or is Mars the twin of Uranus?
Map 1: The Rzhev-Vyazma salient
Map 2: Operation Mars
Historical images
Workers from Moscow suburbs handing over new tanks to Soviet servicemen. Source: Commons:RIA Novosti
Sources
Antony Beevor, Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege 1942–1943. Penguin Books, 1998.
Antony Beevor, The Second World War. London, UK: Little, Brown and Co., 2012.
Geoffrey Roberts, Stalin's General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov. London, UK: Icon Books, 2012.
David Glantz, Zhukov's Greatest Defeat: The Red Army's Epic Disaster in Operation Mars, 1942. Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 1999.
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017
Sound effects by Zapsplat.
The Soviet high command's strategy to defeat the Germans at Stalingrad took the invaders by surprise.
Map 1: The German flanks
Map 2: Operation Uranus in action
Red Army soldiers in winter camouflage charge across the steppe
The T-34 in action in Uranus
Northern and southern pincers meet
Red Army commanders from the 5th Tank Army and the 4th Mechanized Corps meet on the steppe near Kalach, 23 November 1942. The end of the beginning.
The third installment describing the biggest single battle in history: the siege of Stalingrad.
By November 1942, the casualties for attackers and defenders was unsustainable for both sides. The Soviet high command, Stavka, makes a new plan.
Pavlov's House
Map 1: The city of Stalingrad
Map 2: The plan for Operation Uranus
Sources
Antony Beevor, The Second World War.
Antony Beevor, Stalingrad: the Fateful Siege 1942–1943. .
William Craig, Enemy at the Gates.
Anthony Tucker Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War 1941–1945.
In the autumn of 1942, the German 6th Army with Romanian, Hungarian and Italian armies in support, ground into Stalingrad—a hell of their own making.
Map: Stalingrad city layout
Photos
Red Army soldier prepare to defend Stalingrad suburb
Stalingrad on fire after bombing, 2 October 1942
The Red October Factory's ruins became hiding places for Red Army defenders
Loading a Katyusha rocket launcher
Katyusha from military museum
General Friedrich Paulus
Second from left, Gen. Vasily Chuikov in his headquarters in Stalingrad, 1942.
Sources
Antony Beevor, Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege 1942–1943. Penguin Books, 1998.
Antony Beevor, The Second World War. London, UK: Little, Brown and Co., 2012.
William Craig, Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad. Old Saybrook, CT, USA: Konecky & Konecky, 1973.
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017
Sound effects by Zapsplat.
A conversation with Romeo Kokriatski and Anthony Bartaway of the Ukraine Without Hype podcast. We talked about the Second World War in Ukraine, and the current war in Ukraine.
Ukraine Without Hype * Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ukraine-without-hype/id1537219548 * Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy8zY2E5ZGNlYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw * Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ukraine-without-hype * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqAUk2oJ9jvb-QcoOoPaiIw * Twitter: @HypeUkraine * PlayerFM: https://player.fm/series/ukraine-without-hype-3319360
National resistance to German and Soviet occupation played a significant role in the war on the Eastern Front. This episode takes a closer look at the large, organized and powerful resistance armies in Poland and Ukraine.
Map: Ukrainian border shifts between 1939 and 1945
Source: Paul Robert Magosci and Geoffrey J. Matthews, cartographer: Ukraine: A Historical Atlas. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985. Used with the gracious permission of the author.
Photos
"To Arms!" poster recruiting members to join the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. Poster by Mieczysław Jurgielewicz and Edmunt Burke
A unit portrait from the Polish Home Army. Source: U.S. Holocaust Museum
UPA propaganda poster showing a UPA soldier standing on the banners of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. The Cyrillic text is official greeting of the OUN/UPA: Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!.
UPA soldiers in the forest, circa 1944. Source: Encyclopedia of Ukraine.
From Ukraine to Poland to Estonia, across the Eastern Front, partisans and guerrillas fought for the independence of their nations—from both nazi Germany and the communist USSR.
And yes, I call communists and nazis "con artists," "fools" and "dupes."
Get your free books!Leave a rating and/or a review on your podcatcher of choice. Send the link to it to contact@beyondbarbarossa.ca, and I will send you three e-books: Army of Worn Soles, Under the Nazi Heel and Walking Out of War. I will also enter your name in a draw for a signed paperback copy of The Eastern Front Trilogy, which includes all three books!
Facebook: Beyond Barbarossa https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082862966326
Map: Operation Barbarossa, 22 June 1941
You can see the Baltic States and key cities, including Tallinn, Narva, RIga, and Vilnius.
Nazi Germany's war flag
Sources
Antony Beevor, The Second World War. London: Little, Brown and Company, 2012.
Robert Magosci, A History of Ukraine. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996.
Orest Subtelny, Ukraine: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988.
Wikipedia:
- Polish resistance movement in World War II
- Belarusian resistance during World War II
- Resistance in Lithuania during World War II
- German occupation of Latvia during World War II
- Estonian anti-German resistance movement 1941–1944
Larysa Zariczniak, "The Ukrainian Trial of the Century: Bilas and Danylyshyn," Wandering the Edge podcast, 15 August 2023. https://www.wanderingtheedge.net/podcast/episode/4bd50314/the-ukrainian-trial-of-the-century-bilas-and-danylyshyn
Lend-Lease sent 17 million tonnes of ammunition, food, fuel, weapons, tanks, airplanes and even railroad locomotives to the USSR during the Second World War—most of it from the USA. This episode describes how the icon of capitalism saved the workers' and peasants' paradise from fascism.
Map1: Lend-Lease routes
Map 2: Arctic convoy route
Map 3: Persian corridor
Map 4: Pacific route
Sources:
Antony Beevor, The Second World War. London: Little, Brown and Company, 2012.
Max Gethings, "Britain Alone — Rethinking One of the Second World War’s Enduring Myths". Military History Now, 18 May 2023 https://militaryhistorynow.com/2023/05/18/britain-alone-rethinking-one-of-the-second-world-wars-enduring-myths/
Franklin D. Roosevelt, "Fireside Chat On the Arsenal of Democracy," December 29, 1940.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Franklin_D._Roosevelt_-_December_29,_1940_-_On_the_%22Arsenal_of_Democracy%22.ogg
Wikipedia: Lend-Lease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease
The greatest siege in history begins as the German 6th Army and the Luftwaffe assault Stalingrad.
Map 1: Fall Blau, Operation Blue. Note the positions of Voronezh, Stalingrad, the proximity of the great bends of the Don and Volga Rivers, and the Volga's route that leads from the Caspian Sea all the way to Moscow.
Map 2: Stalingrad in 1942, showing the German advance
Places
The Children's Khorovod in front of Railway Station No. 1, after the air raids
People
Panzer General Friedrich Paulus, commander of the German 6th Army
Colonel-General Wolfram von RIchtofen, commander of the Luftflotte (air fleet) 4, 1942
Major-General Hans Hube, commander of the 16th Panzer Division
People's Commissar Nikita Khrushchev (left) and General Andrey Yeremenko (far right), commander of the South-Eastern Front (later renamed the Stalingrad Front), December 1942
General Vasily Chuikov (second from left), commander of the 62nd Red Army, December 1942
Sources
Antony Beevor, The Second World War. London: Little, Brown and Company, 2012.
William Craig, Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad. Old Saybrook, CT, USA: KOnecky & Konecky, 1973.
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin's War 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017.
Wikipedia: Battle of Stalingrad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stalingrad
— Case Blue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_Blue
Nazi Germany opens up its second summer of the war in the East with a campaign of eerie echoes with the previous summer, and the Soviets respond in the same way. History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes.
Map 1: The Caucasus
Map 2: The plan for Case Blue
Map 3: Into the Caucasus
Credit where credit is due
Anthony Beevor, The Second World War. London: Little, Brown and Company, 2012.
William Craig, Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad. Old Saybrook, CT: Konecky & Konecky, 1972.
Clayton Donnel, The Defense of Sevastopol, 1941–1942: The Soviet Perspective. Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword Books Ltd., 2016.
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin's War 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017.
Wikipedia, Battle of the Caucasus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Caucasus
What's coming up in Season 2.
Thank you to all the Patreon supporters. https://www.patreon.com/BeyondBarbarossa
Episode 29 is the first anniversary! One year ago, on 22 June 2023, this podcast launched on the 81st anniversary of Operation Barbarossa. For this special episode, Kristaps Andrejsons joins to talk about podcasting, and the real-world impact of the Second World War on Latvian culture and society—impacts that people deal with to this day.
From 16 June, the Germans kept coming closer. Even the Red Army knew the end was coming.
Map: the Battle of Sevastopol, June 1942
The ruins of the Palace of Pioneers, Sevastopol, 1942
Sources:
Clayton Donnell, The Defence of Sevastopol, 1941–1942: The Soviet Perspective. Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Books, 2016
Antony Beevor, The Second World War. London, UK: Little, Brown and Co., 2012.
Petr A. Morgunov, Heroic Sevastopol. Moscow: Nauka, 1979 (Cited in Donnell, The Defence of Sevastopol, 1941–1942.)
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017
Wikipedia: various pages.
Crimea was a critical asset to hold for Germany's plans for its summer 1942 offensive. Especially its best harbour, and the base for the Soviet Black Sea Fleet: Sevastopol.
Map: The Battle of Sevastopol, 1942
Figure 1: Western Crimea by satellite. Severnaya Bay is the long, narrow estuary going east from the Black Sea. Sevastopol is in the narrow bay that comes south from it.
Figure 2: Sturmgeshutz III "StuG III" self-propelled assault gun
Figure 3: Goliath disposable explosive vehicle
Figure 4: Thor's brother, Karl-Geralt super-heavy mortar
Figure 5: An unexploded 600-mm shell in Crimea, 1942
Figure 6: Dora, the biggest gun ever made, firing 800 mm shells
Figure 7: The sunken Abkhazia transport ship in Sevastopol Harbour, 1942
StAs the first anniversary of Operation Barbarossa approaches, the Soviet high command knows that the Germans are planning another major offensive. But the Germans have a way of surprising their enemies.
Map 1: The Soviets push back the Germans, winter 1942
Map 2: German Case Blue objectives, 1942
Map 3: Leningrad front
Sturmgeschutz III self-propelled assault gun
Karl-Gestat super-heavy mortar
Sources:
Clayton Donnell, The Defence of Sevastopol, 1941–1942: The Soviet Perspective. South Yorkshire, UK: Pen & Sword Military Books, 2016.
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin's War 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017.
Antony Beevor, The Second World War. London, UK: Little, Brown and Co., 2012.
Wikipedia: Timeline of the Second World War, 1942
— Karl-Gerat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl-Gerat
— Lend-Lease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease
It's the spring of 1942. As the German Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe rebuild, the high command plans a new offensive in the east. Meanwhile, the Soviets strike back in Crimea and Kharkiv.
Map 1: The Crimean peninsula
Map 2: Kerch peninsula
Map 3: The Second Battle of Kharkiv
Sources
Antony Beevor, The Second World War. London, UK: Little, Brown and Co., 2012.
Ray Harris, The History of World War II podcast. https://worldwariipodcast.net
David Glantz, Operation Barbarossa: Hitler's Invasion of Russia 1941. Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press, 2011
David Stahel, Operation Typhoon: Hitler's March on Moscow, October 1941. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
David Stahel, Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
David Stahel reveals the real reason that Operation Barbarossa failed, a conclusion he reached after the deepest research into wehrmacht records.
Author of Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East, as well as several other books on the Second World War in the east, he's a Senior Lecturer in European History at the University of New South Wales in Canberra, Australia. He joins Beyond Barbarossa for an eye-opening conversation.
David Stahel's books:
Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Kiev 1941: Hitler's Battle for Supremacy in the East. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Operation Typhoon: Hitler's March on Moscow, October 1941. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
The Battle for Moscow. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
Retreat from Moscow: A new history of Germany's winter campaign, 1941–1942. New York: Picador, 2019.
Hitler's Panzer Generals: Guderian, Hoepner, Reinhardt and Schmidt Unguarded. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, coming May 2023.
As editor:
With Alex J. Kay and Jeff Rutherford: Nazi Policy on the Eastern Front, 1941: Total War, Genocide, and Radicalization. University of Rochester Press, 2012.
Joining Hitler's Crusade: European Nations and the Invasion of the Soviet Union, 1941. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
With Alex J. Kay: Mass Violence in Nazi-Occupied Europe. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2018.
With Craig W.H. Luther and R. L. DiNardo: Soldiers of Barbarossa: Combat, Genocide and Everyday Experiences on the Eastern Front, June–December 1941.Lanham, MD USA: Stackpole Books, 2020.
David Stahel offers a fresh perspective on the Eastern Front, one that turns the common conception of the war upside-down.
Author of The Battle for Moscow and several other books on the Second World War in the east, he's a Senior Lecturer in European History at the University of New South Wales in Canberra, Australia. He joins Beyond Barbarossa for an eye-opening conversation.
David Stahel's books:
Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Kiev 1941: Hitler's Battle for Supremacy in the East. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Operation Typhoon: Hitler's March on Moscow, October 1941. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
The Battle for Moscow. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
Retreat from Moscow: A new history of Germany's winter campaign, 1941–1942. New York: Picador, 2019.
Hitler's Panzer Generals: Guderian, Hoepner, Reinhardt and Schmidt Unguarded. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, coming May 2023.
As editor:
With Alex J. Kay and Jeff Rutherford: Nazi Policy on the Eastern Front, 1941: Total War, Genocide, and Radicalization. University of Rochester Press, 2012.
Joining Hitler's Crusade: European Nations and the Invasion of the Soviet Union, 1941. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
With Alex J. Kay: Mass Violence in Nazi-Occupied Europe. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2018.
With Craig W.H. Luther and R. L. DiNardo: Soldiers of Barbarossa: Combat, Genocide and Everyday Experiences on the Eastern Front, June–December 1941. Lanham, MD USA: Stackpole Books, 2020.
Books about the Nazi occupation of Norway mentioned in the episode:
J.L. Oakley, The Jossing Affair. J.L. Oakley, publisher, 2016.
— The Quisling Factor. J.L. Oakley, publisher, 2020.
Stalin orders a general counter-offensive designed to drive the Germans back to Berlin by the end of 1942. Does it work?
Map 1: The Soviet counter-offensive, Winter 1941–1942
Map 2: The Rzhev salient
Map 3: The Lozovoya-Toropets offensive
Sources:
David Glantz, Operation Barbarossa: Hitler's Invasion of Russia, 1941. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2011.
Walter Kerr, The Russian Army: Its Men, Its Leaders and Its Battles. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1944.
David Stahel, Retreat from Moscow: A New History of Germany's Winter Campaign, 1941_1942. New York, USA: Picador, 2020.
—, Operation Typhoon: Hitler's March on Moscow, October 1941. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin's War 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017.
Maps: Wikipedia.
Sound effects: Zapsplat.
After stopping Operation Barbarossa, at the opening of 1942, the Red Army launches a series of offensives to drive the Germans back to Berlin. A series of offensives that became a series of bloody failures.
Map 1: The Soviet Winter Offensives, December 1941 – May 1942
Map 2: The Crimean Peninsula
Map 3: The Kerch Peninsula
The Red Army and Navy land on the eastern extremity of Crimea
Map 4: The Lyuban Offensive, or the Battle of Volkhov
Map 5: The Demyansk Pocket
Sources:
Clayton Donnell, The Defence of Sevastopol, 1941–1942: The Soviet Perspective. Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Books Ltd., 2016
David Glantz, Operation Barbarossa: Hitler's Invasion of Russia 1941. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2011
David Stahel, Operation Typhoon: Hitler's March on Moscow, October 1941. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013
David Stahel, Retreat from Moscow: A New History of Germany's Winter Campaign, 1941–1942. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin's War 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017
A crucial prelude to Operation Barbarossa and the war on the Eastern Front of World War II: the Winter War between the USSR and Finland.
Spoiler alert: The Soviet Union gets its ass kicked by a force less than half the size.
This episode is the first part in a three-part series on the Winter War; parts 2 and 3 will be for supporters and members only.
Map 1: The Mannerheim Line of Finnish defences across the Karelian Isthmus.
Map 2: The USSR's four main attacks on Finland, 30 November 1939
Map 3: Soviet advances in the Karelian Isthmus, December 1939
Map 4: Ladogo Karelia, north of Lake Ladoga
Sources:
Philip Jowett and Brent Snodgrass, Finland at War 1939–45. New York, NY: Osprey Publishing, 2006.
Wikipedia: Timeline of World War II (1939)
—: The Winter War
The Winter War. Captivating History, 2020.
Vesa Nenye, Peter Munter, Toni Wirtanen and Chris Birks, Finland at War: The Winter War, 1939–40. New York, NY: Osprey Publishing, 2018.
Sound effects obtained from Zapsplat.
A very special guest joins the podcast this week: the one and only Daniele Bolelli of the History on Fire podcast.
Sources:
The History on Fire podcast
http://historyonfirepodcast.com/
In December 1941, the German army meets its match: General Winter arrives. So do huge Soviet reinforcements, and the Wehrmacht's advance on Moscow halts and has to back up.
Map 1: The Moscow Counter-Offensive, December 1941
Map 2: Tikhvin and Leningrad, Nobember 1941
Sources:
David Glantz, Operation Barbarossa: Hitler's Invasion of Russia 1941. Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press, 2011
David Stahel, Operation Typhoon: Hitler's March on Moscow, October 1941. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
David Stahel, Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin's War 1941-1945.Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press, 2017.
Wikipedia, Timeline of World War II (1941). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_World_War_II_(1941)
Ray Harris, 'caster of the History of World War II Podcast, joins me to talk about the significance of the Eastern Front of the Second World War, and some of the surprises he found in his work.
https://worldwariipodcast.net/all-podcasts/
Interested in World War II history? Check out Ray's podcast!
What was life like for the people living in the lands occupied by nazi German in the East? We take a close look.
Link
Remembering the Holodomor: Ukraine Without Hype podcast
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-35-remembering-the-holodomor/id1537219548?i=1000587845635
Sources:
Paul Robert Magosci, A History of Ukraine. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996.
Shevchenko Scientific Society, Volodymyr Kubijovyc, editor, Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopedia. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1963.
Orest Subtelny, Ukraine: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000.
Wikipedia: The Eastern Front of World War II.
-
One of my favourite podcasters, Sebastian Major of Our Fake History, joins me for a talk about historical myths about the Eastern Front of World War II.
It's one of the best podcasts out there about history. Listen to it on your preferred podcasting app, and find it at OurFakeHistory.com.
How the home port of the Red Navy's Black Sea Fleet earned the title, "Hero City of the USSR."
Map 1: Crimea
Source: Nations Online
Map 2: The Siege of Sevastopol
Source: Warfare History Network
Other sources:
Clayton Donnell, The Defence of Sevastopol, 1941–1942: The Soviet Perspective. Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword Books Ltd., 2016.
David Glantz, Operation Barbarossa: Hitler's Invasion of Russia 1941. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2011.
David Stahel, Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Siege of Sevastopol (1941–1942), Wikipedia.
The battle for Crimea is almost a microcosm of the entire war on the Eastern Front of World War II.
Satellite photo of southern Crimea: Severnaya Bay is the long, narrow bay curving upward into the land. Sevastopol is located on the smaller bay at right angles.
This image was taken by the Nasa Expedition 20 crew. - NASA Earth Observatory. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Map source: Nations Online Project. https://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/map/Crimea-map.htm
A conversation with Larysa Zariczniak, host and producer of the Wandering the Edge podcast on Ukrainian culture and history, with a spot of travel—when Ukraine isn't being invaded.
We spoke about Ukrainian culture, history, parallels between 1941 and 2022, and what the experiences of those two periods can tell us about the Ukrainian cultural identity.
Wandering the Edge is available on all podcasting platforms. Visit the website at WanderingTheEdge.net.
The 900 Days of Leningrad's siege saw the greatest destruction in modern history, and the larges loss of life in a modern city. It dwarfed urban campaigns elsewhere in the Second World War by a factor of magnitude.
This episode links this immense struggle with the rest of the war in the East.
Map 1: Finnish and Soviet forces on the eve of Barbarossa, 1941
Map 2: Finnish offensive operations in Karelia, summer and autumn, 1941
Map 3: The siege of Leningrad
The German 36th Mountain Corps moves through Lapland to cut the vital Murmansk Railroad to Leningrad. But under the midnight sun, it meets a foe even more difficult than the Red Army.
Map 1: Finland 1940-41
The red area around Salla is the target for the 36th Mountain Corps.
Figure 1: Finnish soldiers moving through the Arctic forest on their way to the Murmansk railroad
Sources:
David Glantz, Operation Barbarossa: Hitler's Invasion of Russia 1941. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2011.
David Stahel, Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Operation Silver Fox: The History of Nazi Germany's Arctic Invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II. Charles River Editors, 2016.
Timeline of World War II (1941). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_World_War_II_(1941)
Operation Silver Fox in the farthest northern reaches of continental Europe had a direct impact on the war in the Eastern Front.
Map 1: Finland from 1920 to 1938
Map 2: The Winter War, 1939-1940
Map 3: Areas Finland ceded to the USSR after the Winter War
Sources:
Operation Silver Fox: The History of Nazi Germany's Arctic Invasion of the Soviet Union During World War II Published by Charles River Editors, 2016
Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East, by David Stahel. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2009.
My apologies. It will be another week for the full episode 10 on Operation Silver Fox. BUT there is a bonus episode available for supporters.
German's final, final assault on the capital of the USSR in November 1941.
Map 1: The Battle of Moscow, November 1941.
Map 20: The bigger picture.
Source: U.S. Army archives.
Soviets fighting back during "offensive weather":
Rasputitsa:
Defense of Moscow:
Women militia training in Moscow, fall 1941:
New T-34 tanks roll off the assembly line, 1941
Soviet air power:
The Yakovlev Yak fighter
Ilyushin Il-2 in flight near Moscow, December 1941
Winter
Abandoned German vehicles in the snow, on the highway from Volokolamsk to Moscow, December 1941:
Wrecked Panzer III, December 1941:
The Wehrmacht assembles its biggest concentrated force for the largest single campaign of Operation Barbarossa.
Image 1: German half-track, deep in the mud of rasputitsa.
Image 2: Pulling vehicles through the mud of Russia in fall.
Image 3: Eventually, the Germans had to resort to horses to haul even their field guns during rasputitsa.
Map: The push toward Moscow in the fall of 1941.
If you enjoyed this podcast, consider leaving a five-star rating on your preferred podcaster.
You can also support the podcast through Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/BeyondBarbarossa
Sources:
David M. Glantz: Operation Barbarossa: Hitler's Invasion of Russia 1941. Stroud, Gloucesgershire, UK, The History Press, 2013.
Peter G. Tsouras, editor: Fighting in Hell: The German Ordeal on the Eastern Front. New York, NY: Ivy Books, 1995.
David Stahel: Operation Typhoon: Hitler's March on Moscow, October 1941. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
David Stahel: Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Sponsor: The Eastern Front Trilogy by Scott Bury
The true story of a Canadian drafted into the Soviet Red Army in World War II.
https://scottburyauthor.com/books/the-eastern-front-trilogy/
As the Germans strangle Leningrad and sweep across Ukraine, we can see just how complicated the Eastern Front is, and how connected to events and decisions a world away.
Map 1: Closing on Leningrad.
Photos: Rasputitsa
Horses sank up to their bellies in mud in Ukraine during rasputitsa.
Even tracked vehicles became mired in the deep mud.
Having captured most of Ukraine and with a choke-hold on Leningrad, Germany appears to be winning as it advances on Moscow. But the big picture looks different close up.
The Battle of Smolensk may just be the big turning point in the was in the East.
This episode sponsored by The Eastern Front Trilogy, the true story of a Canadian drafted into the Red Army in World War II.
The Eastern Front Trilogy.
All proceeds from the sales of The Eastern Front Trilogy in paperback or its constituent e-books will go to helping Ukrainian refugees until all Ukrainians can return home safe from Russian military aggression.
Contact the author by email to contact@writtenword.ca
Support the podcast on Patreon.
Map 1: The situation in the summer of 1941
Map 2: The Battle of Smolensk
The best tank of the war: the Soviet T34
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Attribution: Лишь человек The Soviet KV-1 heavy tank
The Soviet PTRD-41 anti-tank gun
Source: RIA Novosti archive, image #4408 / N. Bode / CC-BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
The Katyusha
The Katyusha in action
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Attribution: RIA Novosti archive, image #303890 / Zelma / CC-BY-SA 3.0
Books cited in this episode:
David Glantz: Operation Barbarossa: Hitler's Invasion of Russia 1941. Stroud, Gloucetershire, UK, 2011.
David Stahel: Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
After the Battle of Smolensk, Germany changes its strategy. It diverts forces away from the drive on Moscow toward two other key objectives: Leningrad in the north, and Kyiv in Ukraine.
This is how that played out.
Map source: US Military Academy.
Bibliography:
Glantz, David: Operation Barbarossa: Hitler’s Invasion of Russia, 1941. The History Press, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK, 2001. https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/
Bury, Scott: Army of Worn Soles. The Written Word Publishing Company, Ottawa, Canada, 2012. https://writtenword.ca/books-by-scott-bury/army-of-worn-soles/
Music by Nicolas Bury.
Operation Barbarossa caught the USSR unready. But that doesn't mean they were helpless. They hit back—hard.
Beyond Barbarossa, the first English-language podcast in the world to focus on the Eastern Front of World War II, takes a close look at the opposing forces facing off across the border on June 22, 1941.
Music by Nicolas Bury.
Links Beyond Barbarossa: the website for more maps and information.
Enjoy this podcast? Support us on Patreon to help cover the costs of production.
The Eastern Front Trilogy: the true story of a Canadian drafted into the Soviet Red Army in 1941—just in time for Operation Barbarossa.
Maps: The initial OKH plan for Operation Barbarossa
German advances to August 1941
Maps sources: World War II Database, United States Military Academy
What brought Nazi Germany and the USSR to the brink of war in June 1941? What about their odd alliance in the late 1930s?
The relationship between these opposite tyrannies played out like the macabre inverse of a romantic comedy. Nothing was funny.
Maps to help:
Battle of Khalkin Gol
German invasion of Poland:
Soviet invasion of Poland
Finland 1940
The first day of the biggest land invasion in the history of warfare.
See the maps on the website, https://beyondbarbarossa.podbean.com.
Sound effects obtained from https://www.zapsplat.com.
Music by Nicolas Bury.
Support the program by becoming a Patreon patron: https://www.patreon.com/BeyondBarbarossa
Get all the info on the web page.
Contact us by email: contact@writtenword.ca
Follow the author on Twitter @ScottTheWriter
Visit the Facebook page
Beyond Barbarossa: The first English-language podcast to focus on the biggest part of World War II— the largest war in human history—the Eastern Front, launches June 22, 2022.
Music by Nicolas Bury.