Beyond Barbarossa: The Eastern Front of World War 2

By Beyond Barbarossa: The Eastern Front of World War 2History

Beyond Barbarossa: The Eastern Front of World War 2 episodes

October 19S5 Ep109: The Shetland Bus to liberate Norway—Episode 109
From 1940 to 1945, steady traffic across the North Sea from the Shetland Islands to the west coast of Norway evacuated civilians and brought in agents, weapons, arms and intelligence.
Author J.L. Oakley joins the podcast again to describe this under-appreciated part of World War 2.
Map: The Shetland Bus route
Links
Books
Hearts Across the Sea video about the Shetland Bus
Operation Rype
The Jossing Affair
The Quisling Factor
The Brisling Code
The Scalloway Museum

Historical photos: See the web page for this episode.
The Scalloway Museum, Shetland Is.
Shetland Bus exhibit in the Scalloway Museum
Typical Norwegian fishing boat in the Shetland Bus system.
Bill Moore of the Scalloway Museum (left) with model of boat and modeler Tron Hvilding.
Lunna House, Shetland
Bomlo Is. and Shetland Is.
Bliya monument
Submarine chaser Vigra, 1943
Wreck of the Hitra
Hitra restored
Lief "Shetlands" Larsen
Below: Norwegian liberation day
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38 min
October 05 S5 Ep108: Norway occupied: Concentration camps + resistance—Episode 108
The nazis thought they would find a brethren Nordic race in Norway. The people's resistance to their occupation brought about an even more brutal occupation.
Part 2 of the conversation with author J.L. Oakley
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44 min
September 21S5 Ep107: World War 2 in Norway: A conversation with author J.L. Oakley—Episode 107
A conversation with J.L. Oakley, author of three historical novels set in Norway during the German occupation of 1940 to 1945
Like the Eastern Front, Norway’s experience during the Second World War is not well known in the English-speaking world. Author Janet Oakley is helping correct that.
Books mentionedBy J.L. Oakley:
The Jossing Affair
The Quisling Factor
The Brisling Code
Hitler's Northern Utopia by Dispina Stratigakos
Gold Run by Robert Pearson
Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan
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38 min
September 07 S5: Special episode: The Cold War anniversary
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/

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42 min
August 24 S5 Ep106: The USSR vs. Japan, 1945: A conversation with James Scott

Historian and author of Empire of Ashes: Truman, Hirohito and the Descent into Total War

James Scott’s latest book, Empire of Ashes, describes in detail the flights that brought nuclear bombs to Japan in August 1945. It also draws intimate portraits of the two leading antagonists on those days, U.S. President Harry Truman and Japanese Emperor Hirohito, from their earliest days through the personal transformations that ushered in a new era of warfare.
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1 hr
August 10 S5 Ep2: Potsdam: The Big Three decide the new world order—Episode 105
In July and August, the leaders and delegations from the “Big Three” victors of the Second World War reshape the borders of Europe and set up a new world order.
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37 min
July 27 S5 Ep1: Potsdam: The Victors debate—Episode 104
The USA, UK and USSR have defeated nazi Germany. The Allies control Europe. In July 1945, the leaders Harry Truman, Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin meet outside Berlin to decide what to do with it.
Go to
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34 min
June 22 S4 Ep7: Barbarossa returns—episode 103
For the 85th anniversary of the launch of the Eastern Front of World War 2, a replay of the first episode of Beyond Barbarossa.
Video, graphics and maps now available to all! https://youtu.be/rrnoEgVcRvE

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28 min
June 08 S4 Ep6: Peace in Europe? Episode 102
The fighting has ended in Europe—but with millions of displaced people surging in all directions across Europe, it cannot be called peace. While millions of POWs look forward to going home, forced labourers and people of eastern Europe know they have no home to return to. And try to escape the communist yoke.
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45 min
May 25 S4 Ep5: After the Fall of Berlin: Episode 101
When Berlin surrendered, the war in Europe continued for another week—in Czechoslovakia and its capital, Prague.
Sources
Antony Beevor, The Fall of Berlin 1945. New York, NY, USA: Penguin Random House, 2002.
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.
Morse code by Thane Brown
Music composed and recorded by Nicolas Bury
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34 min

About Beyond Barbarossa: The Eastern Front of World War 2

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