Beyond Barbarossa: The Eastern Front of World War 2

• 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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• Summer 1944 on the Eastern Front, north and south

  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 [email protected]. 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.

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• Lviv: Another crushing blow—Episode 80 of the first English podcast on the Eastern Front of World War II.

  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.   

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• Nuances of Lend-Lease with Angus Wallace: Episode 79

  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     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.     

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• Operation Bagration: Episode 78

  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.

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