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

April 14, 2025 S3 Ep23: The Third Crushing Blow: Odesa and Crimea offensives
In 1944, the Red Army delivers its third crushing blow on the Axis forces in eastern Europe: two major offensives to recapture the rest of Ukraine, and the Crimean peninsula.
Map 1: Northern Black Sea coast and southern Ukraine

The range where the two mighty blows were delivered. Ploesti, Romania is to the far left of the map, just north of Bucharest.

Map 2:

Map by Scott Bury

Map 3: The Red Army’s Crimean offensive, 1944

Image 1: Issa Pliyev, Commander, Cavalry-Mechanized Group

The Red Army, 4th Guards Cavalry Corps advancing across southern Ukraine, 1944

Miklós Horthy, Regent of Hungary, with Adolf Hitler in Budapest, 1938

The Red Army marches into “liberated” Odesa, 1944

Note the women soldiers in the ranks.
Sources:
Prit Buttar, The Reckoning: The Defeat of Army Group South, 1944. Oxford, 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.
Wikipedia: The Crimean Offensive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_offensive
— The Odesa Offensive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odessa_Offensive
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49 min
March 31, 2025S3 Ep22: World War 2 links to Ukraine: The Latest: A conversation with Francis Dearnley—Episode 71
From the beginning of Russia’s illegal and brutal assault on sovereign Ukraine, Ukraine: The Latest has covered the war every week day. Francis Dearnley, Executive Editor for Audio for Ukraine: The Latest, joins the podcast to look at the historical links and parallels with the Eastern Front of World War 2.
Francis Dearnley, Executive Editor for Audio, Ukraine: The Latest, from The Telegraph

Ukraine: The Latest, daily podcast from The Telegraph

David Knowles, creator of the Ukraine: The Latest podcast
Links
Ukraine: The Latest
on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/ukraine-the-latest/id1612424182
and available on all major podcast platforms.
Francis Dearnley’s interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Winston Churchill’s World War II memoirs

Guy Sajer’s The Forgotten Soldier

Antony Beevor’s Berlin 1945

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58 min
March 28, 2025 S3 Ep21: The curtain falls on Germany in 1943: Episode 63
Episode 63: at the end of 1943, the situation for nazi Germany and communist USSR on the Eastern Front is radically different from the end of 1942. Plus, the Cairo and Tehran Conferences promise to reshape the geo-political world.
Map 1: The Red Army advances to, and past the Wotan Line

Map 2: The front lines, 15 November 1943

Map 3: The front lines, 31 December 1943

Historical photos: The German Panther (Panzer V) vs. the Soviet T-34-85

Soviet photo loading artillery at Nikopol bridgehead

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.
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46 min
March 24, 2025 S3 Ep20: Europe at War: Episode 70 of Beyond Barbarossa, the podcast about the Eastern Front of World War II
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
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51 min
March 10, 2025 S3 Ep19: The reality of occupation: Episode 69
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.

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33 min
March 01, 2025 S3 Ep18: Ambush in the Oval Office
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.
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20 min
February 24, 2025 S3 Ep2: The broad front: Episode 68
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

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35 min
February 10, 2025 S3 Ep17: The Red Army has the momentum: Episode 67
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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42 min
January 27, 2025 S3 Ep16: 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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32 min
January 13, 2025 S3 Ep15: 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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44 min

About Beyond Barbarossa: The Eastern Front of World War 2

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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…