Buoyed by their victories over Poland and France, on the 22 June 1941 the Germans launched Operation Barbarossa, and over 3 millions men advanced over the border to attack Russia. The opening of the Eastern Front would be one of Hilter’s most momentous decisions of WWII.
Having only signed a nonaggression pact with German in 1939, Stalin was taken by surprise. The opening weeks of the offensive were wildly successful for the Germans, but as the Panzer formations rapidly advanced the infantry struggled, on foot, to keep up. At Kiev, the Germans would take over half a million Russian soldiers prisoner. Barbarossa was a campaign where one Panzer Divisional commander queried if the Germans were ‘winning themselves to death’.
Joining me for this episode is now regular of the podcast Jonathan Trigg. In episode 55 and 77 Jon and I looked at foreign recruits to the SS, in 102 we looked at D Day from the German perspective and in episode 115115 – To VE Day Through German Eyes we talked about the end of the war for Germany. Jonathan has been busy and has a new book available, Barbarossa Through German Eyes.
Patreon: patreon.com/ww2podcast
126 - The River Battles: Canada's Final Campaign in Italy
125 - Mechanisation of British Cavalry Units and Tank Doctrine
124 - Kais: Downed airmen in New Guinea
123 - Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay
122 - Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up
121 - To Defeat The Few: The Luftwaffe's Battle of Britain
120 - The People's Army in the Spanish Civil War
119 - The British Army and the Anti-Locust Campaign
118 - The Codebreakers of Bletchley Park
117 - Information Hunters
116 - Clementine Churchill
115 - To VE Day Through German Eyes
114 - Airborne Chaplains in the Second World War
113 - Sighted Sub, Sank Same
112 - Four Hours of Fury: Operation Varsity
111 - An Impeccable Spy: Richard Sorge
110 - The P-47 Thunderbolt and 362nd Fighter Group
109 - The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan
108 - The Battle for Hong Kong, 1941
107 - The Battle of the Peaks and Long Stop Hill
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