Beyond Barbarossa: The Eastern Front of World War 2

The Impossible Alliance, Part 2: Episode 95

Why did the Yalta Conference end the way it did? Why did Churchill try an end-run around Roosevelt? Why did Roosevelt try to curry Stalin’s favour? What would this mean to post-war history?
Author Giles Milton joins to discuss some of the Second World War’s most perplexing questions. 
People
Author Giles Milton
His latest book, The Stalin Affair: The impossible alliance that won the war
 
The Big Three: Soviet Premier Josef Stalin, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and U.K. Prime Minister Winston Churchill
 
Kathleen “Kathy” or “Puff” Harriman, daughter of Roosevelt’s right hand and Ambassador to the USSR in 1945, Averell Harriman
 
Averell Harriman
 
Pamela Churchill, WInston Churchill’s daughter-in-law in 1945, and later, Mrs. Averell Harriman
 
Stalin and Churchill at the Moscow Conference, 1944
 
Franklin Roosevelt in 1945
Map 1: The division of Germany after May 1945
 
Map 2: Invasion of Poland, 1939
Map 3: Poland moves 100 km west 
 
Sources
Giles Milton, author: https://www.gilesmilton.com/
Books
podcast: Ministry of Secrets 

The Impossible Alliance, Part 1: Episode 94

Why were the Yalta Conference’s decisions so vague? Why did Stalin get everything he wanted? And why did Roosevelt act so naively? 
Giles Milton, bestselling author of The Stalin Affair: The Impossible Alliance that Won the War, joins the podcast today to help understand the relationships that had the greatest impact on the second meeting of the Big Three of the Second World War.
Photos
Author Giles Milton
 
The Stalin Affair: The Impossible Alliance that Won the War by Giles Milton
 
The Big Three at Yalta, February 1945. Roosevelt would be dead in two months. 
 
Map 1: Yalta in Crimea, on the Black Sea, site of the 1945 Yalta Conference of the Big Three
 
Map 2: The tortured road from Saky Airfield to Yalta
Sources
Giles Milton, author: https://www.gilesmilton.com/
Books
podcast: Ministry of Secrets 

From Malta to Yalta—Episode 93

Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt meet in Malta in the Mediterranean in February 1945, to prepare to meet Josef Stalin in the second Big Three conference on Soviet territory—Yalta. 
It was a meeting that shaped the world for decades. 
Map 1: Malta to Yalta
 
Map 2: The Western Front, 1 February 1945
 
Map 3: The Pacific Theatre, 1 February 1945
Map 4:  Poland’s shift west, 1945
Photos
 
Left: Franklin Roosevelt in 1944. Right: Roosevelt and Churchill at Malta, 2 February 1945.  
 
 
Averell Harriman and daughter Kathleen
 
The Vorontsov Palace, quarters for the British delegation
 
The Livadia Palace, quarters for the American delegation 
 
The Yusupov Palace, housing the Soviet delegation

Into Germany—Episode 92 of the first podcast to focus on the full story of the Eastern Front of World War 2

The Red Army continues its continual advance onto German soil—and the flight of German civilians and military. 
Map 1: The siege of Kongisberg 
 
Map 2: Samland
The Samland Peninsula in 1905, showing city and town names still present in 1945. 
Map 3: The (second) East Prussian Offensive 
Map 4: The advance across Poland 
 
Historical photos
 
Franklin Roosevelt meets Winston Churchill in Malta, 2 February 1945 
 
 
Civilians from Konigsberg walk across frozen Vistula Lagoon, January 1945 
 
CIvilians flee Lodz, Poland, January 1945 
 
 
Red Army arrives in Lodz, Poland, January 1945
 
 
Hitler shakes hands with Col. Claus von Stauffenberg at the “Wolf’s Lair," July 1944.
 
Ruins of the Wolfsschanze, “Wolf’s Lair,” Hitler’s headquarters in East Prussia
Sources
Antony Beevor, The Second World War. New York, NY, USA: Little, Brown and Company, 2012. 
Scott Bury, Walking Out of War: Volume 3 of the Eastern Front Trilogy. Ottawa, Canada: The Written Word, 2017.
Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. 
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War, 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017.
David Sumner, Europe at War: A podcast about lesser-known battles of the Second World War. https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/europe-at-war-a-ww2-podcast/id1788043665 
Larysa Zariczniak, Wandering the Edge: Ukrainian history and culture https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/wandering-the-edge/id1547149262
David Sumner, Europe at War: A WW2 podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/europe-at-war-a-ww2-podcast/id1788043665
Morse code by Thane Brown
Music composed and recorded by Nicolas Bury

The Vise Closes: the Eastern Front, episode 91

After 10 shattering blows on the Eastern Front in 1944, the Western Allies and the USSR continue to compress nazi Germany in January 1945. 
Map 1: The compressing front
 
1a: 1 January 1944
 
 
1b: 1 January 1945 
 
 
1c: 15 January 1945 
 
Map 2: The siege of Budapest, January 1945
 
Map 3: The Vistula-Oder campaign, January 1945
 
Map 4: The East Prussia offensive
Photos
The Budapest Chain Bridge destroyed, January 1945
 
 
Ruins of Warsaw, even in 1947
 
Source: New York photographer Henry N. Cobb, taken in 1947, via Rare Historical Photos.
 

The Battle for Budapest, Part 1—Episode 90

"Budapest lay athwart the main entry route to Austria and Bohemia. It was the main railway hub of the region and also the largest Danubian port. The Red Army could not bypass it. This was the first time in the war that the Red Army had to lay siege to a major city." 
The Red Army assaults the capital of nazi Germany’s final remaining partner in the Second World War. The war appears to be almost lost—but that’s seen through hindsight. No one at the time knew that.
Map 1: The Eastern Front, December 1944
Map 2: Germany’s eastern and western fronts, 1 December 1944
Map 3: The Petsamo-Kirkenes operation in northern Finland
Map 4: The Red Army attacks Budapest
Operation Konrad II
People
 
Mihai I, King of Romania, 1944–1947
 
 
Miklos Horthy, Regent of Hungary
 
 
Miklos Horthy Jr.
 
 
Ference Szalasi, nazi dictator of Hungary, 1944–1945
 
 
Edmund Veesenmayer, Hitler’s “Special Envoy” to Hungary, 1944–1945
 
SS-Obergruppenführer Karl Pfeffer-Wildenbruch, commander of IX SS Mountain Corps
Historical photos: Fighting in Budapest
  
 
Sources
Antony Beevor, The Second World War. New York, NY, USA: Little, Brown and Company, 2012. 
Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. 
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War, 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017.
Morse code by Thane Brown
Music composed and recorded by Nicolas Bury

The Battle of Belgrade—Episode 89

There was a lot of action on the Eastern Front in the autumn of 1944. In late September, the Red Army and its new allies enter Yugoslavia and connect with communist Partisans led by a man called Tito. The results will echo across the decades. 
Map 1: The Balkan military theatre, September 1944–January 1945
Map 2: The Bulgarian incursion
Map 3: The Battle of Belgrade
Photos
 
The Lockheed P-38 Lightning and the Focke-Wulf fw189
 
 
The Yakovlev Yak-9 in flight
 
The Yakovlev Yak-9 in the Russian military museum
 
Josip Broz, a.k.a. Tito, far right, with his staff.
Sources
Antony Beevor, The Second World War. New York, NY, USA: Little, Brown and Company, 2012. 
Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. 
Giles Milton, The Stalin Affair: The impossible alliance that won the war. New York, NY, USA: Henry Holt and Company, 2022.
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War, 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017.
Morse code by Thane Brown
Music composed and recorded by Nicolas Bury

Horror in East Prussia—Episode 88: The Red Army enters Germany

In October 1944, the Red Army entered East Prussia, the heart of German militarism. Horrific war crimes ensued.
Map 1: The Red Army’s advances all across the broad front
 
 
Map 2a: European Theatre, 1 October 1944
 
 
Map 2b: European Theatre, 1 November 1944 
 
Map 3a: The Pacific Theatre, 1 October 1944
 
 
Map 3b: The Pacific Theatre, 1 November 1944 
 
 
Map 4: The Gumbinnen Operation 
 
Historical photos 
 
Konigsberg Castle before World War 1
 
German officers find evidence of massacre at Nemmersdorf, East Prussia
 
Civilians killed at Nemmersdorf, 1944
Sources
Antony Beevor, The Second World War. New York, NY, USA: Little, Brown and Company, 2012. 
Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. 
Pat McTaggart, "Goldap Operation: Soviets in the Prussian Heartland,” in WWII History, vol. 14, No. 2, February 2015. Cited in Warfare History Network, February 2015, https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/goldap-operation-soviets-in-the-prussian-heartland/ 
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War, 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017.
Morse code by Thane Brown
Music composed and recorded by Nicolas Bury
 

The Axis collapses: Beyond Barbarossa, episode 87

In the autumn of 1944, nation after nation abandons the cruel, insane Axis to join the Western Allies or USSR: Romania, Bulgaria, Slovkia … as Finland signs an armistice with the USSR. With the Red Army on the border of Germany itself, Hungary faces the choice: to fight on with, or against, the nazis.
Map 1: The Red Army invades Slovakia
The Dukla Pass is to the right.
 
Map 2: The Battle of Debrecen 
 
 
Photos
General (later Marshal) Rodion Malinovsky, 1944
 
General (later Marshal) Fyodor Tolbukhin, 1944
 
Marshal Ivan Konev, 1945 
 
Milos Horthy, Regent of Hungary, 1944
 
Ferenc Szalisi, Leader of the Hungarian Nation, 1944
 
General Heinz Guderian, Inspector-General of the Army, 1944

Stalled on the Baltic Coast: USSR vs. the wehrmacht, Episode 86

By the autumn of 1944, everyone could see which way the Second World War was going — even the Axis commanders. Still, they were able to hold the Red Army back in key locations like Courland and Memel.
 
Map 1: The Courland and Memel pockets, to the end of 1944
 
 
Map 2: The Memel pocket, 1944
 
Image 1: Hovhannes Bagramyan in 1955
 
Image 2: Army of Worn Soles, volume 1 of the Eastern Front Trilogy
 
https://www.amazon.com/Army-Worn-Soles-Scott-Bury/dp/0987914197/
 
Image 3: Walking Out of War, volume 3 of the Eastern Front Trilogy
 
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1987846052 
Sources
Scott Bury, Army of Worn Soles: Volume 1 of The Eastern Front Trilogy. Ottawa: The Written Word Publishing Co., 2014.
Scott Bury, Walking Out of War: Volume 3 of The Eastern Front Trilogy. Ottawa: The Written Word Publishing Co., 2014.
Prit Buttar, The Reckoning: The Defeat of Army Group South, 1944 . Okford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2020. 
Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. 
Morse code by Thane Brown
Music composed and recorded by Nicolas Bury

Everywhere, all at once: Episode 85—East and West, north and south, 1944

Describing the Eastern Front chronologically gets very difficult in the second half of 1944, because there’s so much happening everywhere, all at the same time. 
After the Warsaw Rising, as described in Episode 83, the Red Army surged past its borders into Finland, Estonia, Romania, Bulgaria, and farther. 
Meanwhile, the Western Allies are taking France, Belgium and Italy from Hitler. But there is still a lot of fighting and death to come. 
Map 1: The Gothic Line, Italy  
 
Map 2: The Continuation War ends, Finland 
 
Map 3: The advance of the Red Army, August 1943–December 1944 
 
Maps 4A and 4B: Advances of the front lines, east and west 
4A: 15 August 1944
4B: 1 October 1944
 
Sources
Antony Beevor, The Second World War. London, UK: Little, Brown and Co., 2012. 
Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. 
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Stalin’s Revenge: Operation Bagration and the Annihilation of Army Group Centre.  Barnsley, South Yorkshire, UK: Pen and Sword Books, 2009. 
Morse code by Thane Brown
Music composed and recorded by Nicolas Bury

A promise fulfilled: Help for Ukrainian refugees—special episode

Today, Beyond Barbarossa fulfills a promised made at the start of this podcast: a meaningful donation to help refugees of Russia’s unjustifiable war of aggression against  Ukraine, to the Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal.
We’re joined by Valeriy Kostyuk, Executive Director of the Canada-Ukraine Foundation, which runs the appeal.
Links
Canada-Ukraine Foundation
Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal
Medical javelins
Thornhill Medical and their MOVES SLC mobile life-support system. 

Warsaw rising: Episode 83 of the 1st podcast on the Eastern Front of WW2

In August 1944, the Red Army steamrolled across eastern Europe. Yet when Warsaw rose up against the nazi occupiers, they found themselves alone. 
Historic photos
Tadeusz Bor-Komorowski (right), Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Home Army 
 
AK fighter with flamethrower
 
 
Home Army soldiers from Kolegium "A" of Kedyw formation on Stawki Street in the Wola District of Warsaw, September 1944. Source: Wikipedia Commons
 
 
Jewish POWs freed by AK
 
The remains of Warsaw after the Germans “withdrew.” 
 
Sources
Antony Beevor, The Second World War. London, UK: Little, Brown and Co., 2012. 
Norman Davies, Rising ’44: The Battle for Warsaw. London, UK: Macmillan, 2004.
Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. 
Anthony Tucker-Jones,Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War 1941–1945.  Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017. 
Music by Nicolas Bury.
Morse code from Thane Brown. 

Special episode: Gouzenko—the man who exposed the Cold War

In this special episode of the podcast on the Eastern Front of World War Two, we go beyond Beyond Barbarossa and beyond the end of the Second World War.
80 years ago to the day of this publication a handsome young man approached Canadian media and officials with proof that the Soviet Union was spying on its allies. The Cold War was on.
 
Former Soviet cypher clerk Igor Gouzenko, hooded to protect his identity, being interviewed by Associated Press reporter Saul Pett in Montreal in 1954. 
 
The Gouzenkos’ apartment building on Somerset Street in central Ottawa. There is no plaque commemorating Igor Gouzenko. (Photo by Scott Bury, 2025.)
 
Igor Gouzenko in Canada, 1946.
 
Sources
Winston Churchill, “The Sinews of Peace,” speech given at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, U.S.A., 5 March 1946. https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/winstonchurchillsinewsofpeace.htm
J.L. Granatstein and David Stafford, Spy Wars: Espionage and Canada from Gouzenko to Glasnost. Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1990.
John Sawatsky, Gouzenko: The Untold Story. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1984
Wikipedia, Gouzenko Affair. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gouzenko_Affair
Wondery Podcasts, “The Spy Who, Season 7: The Spy Who Started the Cold War” https://wondery.com/shows/the-spy-who/season/7/ 

Summer 1944 on the Eastern Front, north and south

In summer 1944, "the Red Army’s seemingly unstoppable streamroller took Stanislav in the Carpathian foothills, Bialystok in northern Poland, Dvinsk in Latvia and the Siauliai (also spelt Shaulyai) rail junction between Riga and East Prussia.” — Anthony Tucker-Jones.
Even so, the steamroller suffered ferocious mauling. 
If you can transcribe the morse code signal during “What else is happening in the war,” send an email to scott@beyondbarbarossa.ca. If you’re correct, I will send you a free autographed copy of The Eastern Front Trilogy.
Map 1a: The Eastern Front, July 1944
Map 1b: The front, August 1944
 
Map 2: The Lvov-Sandomierz Offensive, detail
 
 
Map 3: The Narva Offensive
Music by Nicolas Bury.
Morse code from Thane Brown. 
Some sound effects from Zapsplat.com.

Lviv: Another crushing blow—Episode 80 of the first English podcast on the Eastern Front of World War II.

Stalin’s one-two punch against Germany is the Lvov-Sandomierz offensive, hitting in Ukraine as Bagration smashes into Byelorussia. It also lays bare the brutality within the Red Army. 
Map 1: The Byelorussian Balcony
 
Map 2: The Lvov-Sandomierz Operation
 
Map 3: The Eastern Front, 15 June 1944
 
Map 4: The Eastern Front, 15 July 1944
 
Map 5: The Eastern Front, 15 August 1944
 
Ivan Konev, commander, 1st Ukrainian Front
 
Lt. General Pavel Rybalko, commander, 3rd Guards Tank Army
 
Josef Harpe, Commander, Army Group North Ukraine
 
Sources:
Antony Beevor, The Second World War. London, UK: Little, Brown and Co., 2012. 
Prit Buttar, Retribution: The Soviet Reconquest of Central Ukraine, 1943. Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2019.
Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. 
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Stalin’s Revenge: Operation Bagration and the Annihilation of Army Group Centre.  Barnsley, South Yorkshire, UK: Pen and Sword Books, 2009. 
 

Nuances of Lend-Lease with Angus Wallace: Episode 79

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. 
 
 

Operation Bagration: Episode 78

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.

On the eve of Bagration: the next crushing blow in World War 2’s eastern front

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/

The Forgotten Army: Poland’s Armia Krajowa

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.