The first English-language podcast to focus on the history of the eastern front of the Second World War
The podcast Beyond Barbarossa: The Eastern Front of World War 2 is created by Scott Bury. The podcast and the artwork on this page are embedded on this page using the public podcast feed (RSS).
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
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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
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
After crossing the Dnipro at Bukrin and getting bogged down by the panzers, the Red Army shifts focus northward to take the Ukrainian capital.
Map 1: The Battle of Kyiv, 1943
Source: Warfare History Network.com
Map 2: German war map of the Battle of Kyiv, 1943
Note the crossing at Ljutesch, German spelling of Lyutizh (Ukrainian) or Liutezh (Russian).
Source: Alchetron, the Free Social Encyclopedia
Photo 1: Crossing the Dnipro
Soviet sappers building a raft to cross the Dnipro. The sign reads, in Russian, "To Kiev!" The soldier in the foreground appears to be looking up at approaching aircraft.
Photo 2: Pavel Rybalko, commander of the Third Guards Tank Army
Photo 3: Kirill Moskalenko, commander of the 38th Army during the second Battle of Kyiv
Photo 4: Kyiv after recapture by the Red Army
Links:
The attack on Stalingrad: Episode 31
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.
The best English-language podcast for staying up to date on the war in Ukraine is Ukraine: The Latest from the Daily Telegraph. Its creator and executive producer was David Knowles, who passed away unexpectedly in September.
My condolences and sympathies to Mr. Knowles' family, friends, co-workers and colleagues.
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
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.
(Originally posted 22 June 2024)
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 Germany USSR Germany USSR Rifles 1,359.000 2,421,000 1,370,000 4,049,000 Machine guns 96,000 149,000 117,000 356,000 Artillery 3,800 41,000 41,000 128,000 Tanks + self-propelled guns 8,400 6,600 6,200 24,700 Combat aircraft 12,400 11,600 21,700
German and Soviet war production. 1942–1944 (thousands of units)
1942 1943 1944 Germany USSR Germany USSR Germany USSR RIfles + submachine guns 1,602 4,619 2,509 4,801 3,085 3,006 Machine guns 117 356 263 458 509 439 Artillery 41 128 74 130 148 122 Tanks + self-propelled guns 6 24 11 24 18 29 Combat aircraft 12 22 19 30 34 33
Soviet tank and self-propelled gun losses
1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 Tanks and self-propelled guns available 28,200 35,700 47,900 59,100 48,900 Losses Heavy tanks 900 1,200 1,300 900 900 Medium tanks 2,300 6,600 14,700 13,800 7,500 Light tanks 17,300 7,200 6,400 2,300 300 Self-propelled guns 0 100 1,100 6,800 5,000Source: 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.
For this special episode, a special treat for listeners: new theme music by composer Nicolas Bury.
At the mid-point of the fighting on the Eastern Front of World War II, it's a good time to take a look back at what's happened in the USSR and around the world.
Map 1: Operation Barbarossa to Operation Typhoon
Map 2: Operation Blue
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.
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.
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.
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 HypeNational 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 [email protected], 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:
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. 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
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
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.
- Generalgouvernement
- Reichskommissariat Ostland
- Reichskommissariat Ukraine
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.
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
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.
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.
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 [email protected]
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.
LinksBeyond 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: [email protected]
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, the 81st anniversary.
Music by Nicolas Bury.
En liten tjänst av I'm With Friends. Finns även på engelska.
