Beyond Barbarossa: The Eastern Front of World War 2

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 mentioned
By 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

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/

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.

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.

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.
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