The World at War - Part IV - The Eastern Front (Myth20c - Ep297)

As the summer of 1941 approached, the geopolitical map of the world hinged around three main power blocs: the Anglo-American alliance, the Soviet Union, and the nascent but growing empires of the fascist world. Having witnessed the rapid expansion of Nazi Germany into occupying France, Norway, the low countries and portions of Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union for its part in 1940 annexed sections of Finland in a short but brutal war, went on to take Bessarabia from Romania, and then finally the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Bound together in a non-aggression pact signed in 1939, Hitler and Stalin eyed each other suspiciously, and Germany and Soviet spies were looking for signs of the other’s preparedness to strike. Hitler went first. On June 22nd, 1941, the Germans launched Operation Barbarossa, the largest land invasion in history, aimed squarely at Moscow. Initially planned for six months in a hoped for decapitating blow on the Red Army, the Wehrmacht made tremendous strides through the Soviet hinterland, nearing its capital by the end of fall. As Moscow appeared in the distance, however, and the Russian winter began, comparisons to Napoleon’s ill fated invasion of Russia over 100 years prior started. Unlike the French army, who lasted less than six months, the Germans stayed in Russia for nearly 4 years, engaging in the bloodiest conflicts of the war and in human history, which took over 30 million lives - and reshaping the geopolitical landscape ever since.

NOTE: This was recorded in two parts because of the scale and magnitude of this topic. The intermission half way including clips from the documentary demarcates our recordings.

The World at War Episodes covered in this episode:

5 - "Barbarossa (June-December 1941)"
9 - "Stalingrad (June 1942-February 1943)"
11 - "Red Star: The Soviet Union (1941-1943)"

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-- References --

- The World at War, Isaacs (1973) - https://archive.org/details/the-world-at-war-1973-thames-television-world-war-two
- Inside the Soviet Army, Suvarov (1982)
- Icebreaker, Suvarov (1989)
- Hitler's Panzers East, Stolfi (1992)
- The New Dealer's War, Fleming (2001)
- Wages of Destruction, Tooze (2006)
- US vs The World: America's Color Coded War Plans and the Evolution of Rainbow Five, Ressa (2010) - https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1133&context=masters
- Operation Barbarossa - The Invasion of the Soviet Union, Myth of the 20th Century (2018) - https://myth20c.wordpress.com/2018/04/25/operation-barbarossa-the-invasion-of-the-soviet-union/
- Hitler: A Global Biography, Simms (2019)
- The Economics of the Second World War: Seventy-Five Years On, CEPR Press (2020)
- Firefox, Eastwood (1982)
- Soviet Cybernetics - Red Plenty, Myth of the 20th Century (2021) - https://myth20c.wordpress.com/2021/12/09/soviet-cybernetics-red-plenty/
- Input–output model - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Input%E2%80%93output_model