Beyond Barbarossa: The Eastern Front of World War 2
Scott Bury
You know about Stalingrad, the siege of Leningrad, maybe Kursk. But how well do you know the history of the ”Russian front” of the Second World War? Join this ...
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.
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41:03
Crushing Blows: Episode 66
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
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.
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31:10
The Devils' Alliance: A conversation with author Roger Moorhouse, part 2—Episode 65
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
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43:21
The Devils' Alliance: A conversation with author Roger Moorhouse, part 1—Episode 64
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
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38:17
A seasonal special: Christmas 1942 in Stalingrad
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'.
About Beyond Barbarossa: The Eastern Front of World War 2
You know about Stalingrad, the siege of Leningrad, maybe Kursk. But how well do you know the history of the ”Russian front” of the Second World War? Join this detailed description of the largest part of WW2 in Europe, the titanic clash between tyrants Hitler and Stalin.