Beyond Barbarossa: The Eastern Front of World War 2

• Everywhere, all at once: World War 2, fall 1944—Episode 85

  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 (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  4B: 1 October  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    

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• Everywhere, all at once: World War 2, fall 1944—Episode 85

  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 (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    4B: 1 October    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    

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• 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. 

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• 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. 

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• 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/ 

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