By the autumn of 1944, everyone could see which way the Second World War was going — even the Axis commanders. Still, they were able to hold the Red Army back in key locations like Courland and Memel.

Map 1: The Courland and Memel pockets, to the end of 1944

Map 2: The Memel pocket, 1944

Image 1: Hovhannes Bagramyan in 1955

Image 2: Army of Worn Soles, volume 1 of the Eastern Front Trilogy

https://www.amazon.com/Army-Worn-Soles-Scott-Bury/dp/0987914197/

Image 3: Walking Out of War, volume 3 of the Eastern Front Trilogy

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1987846052

Scott Bury, Army of Worn Soles: Volume 1 of The Eastern Front Trilogy. Ottawa: The Written Word Publishing Co., 2014.

Scott Bury, Walking Out of War: Volume 3 of The Eastern Front Trilogy. Ottawa: The Written Word Publishing Co., 2014.

Prit Buttar, The Reckoning: The Defeat of Army Group South, 1944 . Okford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2020.

Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.

Morse code by Thane Brown

Music composed and recorded by Nicolas Bury

Describing the Eastern Front chronologically gets very difficult in the second half of 1944, because there’s so much happening everywhere, all at the same time.

After the Warsaw Rising, as described in Episode 83, the Red Army surged past its borders into Finland, Estonia, Romania, Bulgaria, and farther.

Meanwhile, the Western Allies are taking France, Belgium and Italy from Hitler. But there is still a lot of fighting and death to come.

Map 1: The Gothic Line, Italy

Map 2: The Continuation War ends, Finland

Map 3: The advance of the Red Army, August 1943–December 1944

Maps 4A and 4B: Advances of the front lines, east and west

4A: 15 August 1944

4B: 1 October 1944

Sources

Antony Beevor, The Second World War. London, UK: Little, Brown and Co., 2012.

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.

Morse code by Thane Brown

Music composed and recorded by Nicolas Bury

Today, Beyond Barbarossa fulfills a promised made at the start of this podcast: a meaningful donation to help refugees of Russia’s unjustifiable war of aggression against Ukraine, to the Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal.

We’re joined by Valeriy Kostyuk, Executive Director of the Canada-Ukraine Foundation, which runs the appeal.

Canada-Ukraine Foundation

Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal

Thornhill Medical and their MOVES SLC mobile life-support system.