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 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kedyw) formation on Stawki Street in the Wola (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information. Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

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 (mailto: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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information. Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

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.    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information. Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

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 (https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-ww2-podcast/id982003188)     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.      Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information. Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information. Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

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/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information. Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

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 (https://claremulley.com/books/agent-zo/)   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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information. Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

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/)https://beyondbarbarossa.podbean.com/e/looking-back-taking-stock-episode-50/ The Battle(s) of Kursk Episode 51: Summer 1943 plans (https://beyondbarbarossa.podbean.com/e/summer-1943-plans-season-3-opener-episdoe-51/)https://beyondbarbarossa.podbean.com/e/summer-1943-plans-season-3-opener-episdoe-51/ Episode 52: Zitadelle, the Battle of Kursk, Part 2 (https://beyondbarbarossa.podbean.com/e/zitadelle%E2%80%94the-battle-of-kursk-part-2-episode-52/)https://beyondbarbarossa.podbean.com/e/zitadelle—the-battle-of-kursk-part-2-episode-52/ (https://beyondbarbarossa.podbean.com/e/zitadelle%E2%80%94the-battle-of-kursk-part-2-episode-52/) Episode 53: The Battle of Kursk, part 3 (https://beyondbarbarossa.podbean.com/e/the-battle-of-kursk-part-3-episode-53/)https://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/)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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information. Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

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.   (https://atuckerjones.com/) Historian and author Anthony Tucker-Jones (https://atuckerjones.com/) (https://atuckerjones.com/)   (https://atuckerjones.com/) Two of his books  Learn more about Anthony Tucker-Jones on his website (https://atuckerjones.com/).    Map 1: Three Red Army Fronts advance on Berlin   Map 2: The final battle for Berlin   Movies cited: Downfall, in German with subtitlesCome and See, in Russian   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information. Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

This episode, we jump forward for the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe. To guide us through the battles for Berlin, we are joined by the author of The Fall of Berlin: The Final Days of Hitler’s Evil Regime.  Author Anthony Tucker-Jones (https://atuckerjones.com/world-war-ii.html) (https://atuckerjones.com/world-war-ii.html) His website (https://atuckerjones.com/) and books: https://atuckerjones.com/ Maps Map 1: The front lines, 15 April 1945    Map 2: The front lines, 1 May 1945     Map 3: Final operations, April-May 1945      Map 4: The Red Army’s Vistula-Oder offensive      Map 5: 1st Belorussian Front’s drive through the Seelow Heights to Berlin     Map 6: The battles for Berlin at the end of April 1945  Books      (https://atuckerjones.com/world-war-ii.html) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information. Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.