Beyond Barbarossa: The Eastern Front of World War 2

Stalin orders a general counter-offensive designed to drive the Germans back to Berlin by the end of 1942. Does it work?
Map 1: The Soviet counter-offensive, Winter 1941–1942
Map 2: The Rzhev salient
Map 3: The Lozovoya-Toropets offensive
Sources: 
David Glantz, Operation Barbarossa: Hitler's Invasion of Russia, 1941. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2011. 
Walter Kerr, The Russian Army: Its Men, Its Leaders and Its Battles. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1944.
David Stahel, Retreat from Moscow: A New History of Germany's Winter Campaign, 1941_1942. New York, USA: Picador, 2020.
—, Operation Typhoon: Hitler's March on Moscow, October 1941. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013. 
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin's War 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017.
Maps: Wikipedia. 
Sound effects: Zapsplat. 

After stopping Operation Barbarossa, at the opening of 1942, the Red Army launches a series of offensives to drive the Germans back to Berlin. A series of offensives that became a series of bloody failures. 
Map 1: The Soviet Winter Offensives, December 1941 – May 1942
 
Map 2: The Crimean Peninsula 
 
Map 3: The Kerch Peninsula
The Red Army and Navy land on the eastern extremity of Crimea
Map 4:  The Lyuban Offensive, or the Battle of Volkhov 
Map 5: The Demyansk Pocket 
 
Sources:
Clayton Donnell, The Defence of Sevastopol, 1941–1942: The Soviet Perspective. Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Books Ltd., 2016
David Glantz, Operation Barbarossa: Hitler's Invasion of Russia 1941. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2011
David Stahel, Operation Typhoon: Hitler's March on Moscow, October 1941. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013 
David Stahel, Retreat from Moscow: A New History of Germany's Winter Campaign, 1941–1942. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019 
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin's War 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017

A crucial prelude to Operation Barbarossa and the war on the Eastern Front of World War II: the Winter War between the USSR and Finland. 
Spoiler alert: The Soviet Union gets its ass kicked by a force less than half the size.
This episode is the first part in a three-part series on the Winter War; parts 2 and 3 will be for supporters and members only. 
Map 1: The Mannerheim Line of Finnish defences across the Karelian Isthmus.
Map 2: The USSR's four main attacks on Finland, 30 November 1939 
Map 3: Soviet advances in the Karelian Isthmus, December 1939
Map 4: Ladogo Karelia, north of Lake Ladoga
 
Sources:
Philip Jowett and Brent Snodgrass, Finland at War 1939–45. New York, NY: Osprey Publishing, 2006.
Wikipedia: Timeline of World War II (1939)
—: The Winter War
The Winter War. Captivating History, 2020.
Vesa Nenye, Peter Munter, Toni Wirtanen and Chris Birks, Finland at War: The Winter War, 1939–40. New York, NY: Osprey Publishing, 2018.
Sound effects obtained from Zapsplat.
 

A very special guest joins the podcast this week: the one and only Daniele Bolelli of the History on Fire podcast.
Sources: 
The History on Fire podcast
http://historyonfirepodcast.com/ 

In December 1941, the German army meets its match: General Winter arrives. So do huge Soviet reinforcements, and the Wehrmacht's advance on Moscow halts and has to back up. 
Map 1: The Moscow Counter-Offensive, December 1941
 
Map 2: Tikhvin and Leningrad, Nobember 1941 
Sources:
David Glantz, Operation Barbarossa: Hitler's Invasion of Russia 1941. Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press, 2011
David Stahel, Operation Typhoon: Hitler's March on Moscow, October 1941. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
David Stahel, Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin's War 1941-1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press, 2017.
Wikipedia, Timeline of World War II (1941). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_World_War_II_(1941) 

Ray Harris, 'caster of the History of World War II Podcast, joins me to talk about the significance of the Eastern Front of the Second World War, and some of the surprises he found in his work.
https://worldwariipodcast.net/all-podcasts/ 
Interested in World War II history? Check out Ray's podcast! 
 
 

What was life like for the people living in the lands occupied by nazi German in the East? We take a close look. 
Link
Remembering the Holodomor: Ukraine Without Hype podcast
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-35-remembering-the-holodomor/id1537219548?i=1000587845635
Sources: 
Paul Robert Magosci, A History of Ukraine. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996. 
Shevchenko Scientific Society, Volodymyr Kubijovyc, editor, Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopedia. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1963.
Orest Subtelny, Ukraine: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000. 
Wikipedia: The Eastern Front of World War II.
- 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 IIPublished by Charles River Editors, 2016
Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East, by David Stahel. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2009.

My apologies. It will be another week for the full episode 10 on Operation Silver Fox. BUT there is a bonus episode available for supporters. 

German's final, final assault on the capital of the USSR in November 1941. 
Map 1: The Battle of Moscow, November 1941.
Map 20: The bigger picture. 
Source: U.S. Army archives. 
Soviets fighting back during "offensive weather":
Rasputitsa: 
Defense of Moscow: 
Women militia training in Moscow, fall 1941:
New T-34 tanks roll off the assembly line, 1941
Soviet air power: 
The Yakovlev Yak fighter
Ilyushin Il-2 in flight near Moscow, December 1941
Winter 
Abandoned German vehicles in the snow, on the highway from Volokolamsk to Moscow, December 1941:
Wrecked Panzer III, December 1941:

The Wehrmacht assembles its biggest concentrated force for the largest single campaign of Operation Barbarossa. 
 
Image 1: German half-track, deep in the mud of rasputitsa. 
Image 2: Pulling vehicles through the mud of Russia in fall. 
Image 3: Eventually, the Germans had to resort to horses to haul even their field guns during rasputitsa. 
Map: The push toward Moscow in the fall of 1941. 
If you enjoyed this podcast, consider leaving a five-star rating on your preferred podcaster.
You can also support the podcast through Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/BeyondBarbarossa
Sources: 
David M. Glantz: Operation Barbarossa: Hitler's Invasion of Russia 1941. Stroud, Gloucesgershire, UK, The History Press, 2013. 
Peter G. Tsouras, editor: Fighting in Hell: The German Ordeal on the Eastern Front. New York, NY: Ivy Books, 1995.
David Stahel: Operation Typhoon: Hitler's March on Moscow, October 1941. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013. 
David Stahel: Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 

Sponsor: The Eastern Front Trilogy by Scott Bury
The true story of a Canadian drafted into the Soviet Red Army in World War II. 
https://scottburyauthor.com/books/the-eastern-front-trilogy/
As the Germans strangle Leningrad and sweep across Ukraine, we can see just how complicated the Eastern Front is, and how connected to events and decisions a world away. 
Map 1: Closing on Leningrad.
Photos: Rasputitsa
Horses sank up to their bellies in mud in Ukraine during rasputitsa. 
Even tracked vehicles became mired in the deep mud. 
 

Having captured most of Ukraine and with a choke-hold on Leningrad, Germany appears to be winning as it advances on Moscow. But the big picture looks different close up. 
The Battle of Smolensk may just be the big turning point in the was in the East. 
This episode sponsored by The Eastern Front Trilogy, the true story of a Canadian drafted into the Red Army in World War II. 
The Eastern Front Trilogy.
All proceeds from the sales of The Eastern Front Trilogy in paperback or its constituent e-books will go to helping Ukrainian refugees until all Ukrainians can return home safe from Russian military aggression. 
Contact the author by email to contact@writtenword.ca 
Support the podcast on Patreon.
Map 1: The situation in the summer of 1941
Map 2: The Battle of Smolensk 
The best tank of the war: the Soviet T34
 
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Attribution: Лишь человек
 
The Soviet KV-1 heavy tank 
 
The Soviet PTRD-41 anti-tank gun 
Source: RIA Novosti archive, image #4408 / N. Bode / CC-BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. 
The Katyusha 
 
The Katyusha in action 
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Attribution: RIA Novosti archive, image #303890 / Zelma / CC-BY-SA 3.0 
 
Books cited in this episode: 
David Glantz: Operation Barbarossa: Hitler's Invasion of Russia 1941. Stroud, Gloucetershire, UK, 2011.  
David Stahel: Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
 

After the Battle of Smolensk, Germany changes its strategy. It diverts forces away from the drive on Moscow toward two other key objectives: Leningrad in the north, and Kyiv in Ukraine. 
This is how that played out. 
 
Map source: US Military Academy. 
Bibliography:
Glantz, David: Operation Barbarossa: Hitler’s Invasion of Russia, 1941. The History Press, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK, 2001. https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/ 
Bury, Scott: Army of Worn Soles. The Written Word Publishing Company, Ottawa, Canada, 2012. https://writtenword.ca/books-by-scott-bury/army-of-worn-soles/
Music by Nicolas Bury. 

Operation Barbarossa caught the USSR unready. But that doesn't mean they were helpless. They hit back—hard.