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.

Maps

Map 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.

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

 

  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.           

 

   

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.

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 

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/

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

Some tank sound effects by Dennis from Pixabay

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.

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 5,000

Source: 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.  

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.

 

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.

Links

Episode 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

Maps

Map 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

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 

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

 

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.

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