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/

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 scott@beyondbarbarossa.ca. 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.

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.