"Budapest lay athwart the main entry route to Austria and Bohemia. It was the main railway hub of the region and also the largest Danubian port. The Red Army could not bypass it. This was the first time in the war that the Red Army had to lay siege to a major city."

The Red Army assaults the capital of nazi Germany’s final remaining partner in the Second World War. The war appears to be almost lost—but that’s seen through hindsight. No one at the time knew that.

Mihai I, King of Romania, 1944–1947

Miklos Horthy, Regent of Hungary

Miklos Horthy Jr.

Ference Szalasi, nazi dictator of Hungary, 1944–1945

Edmund Veesenmayer, Hitler’s “Special Envoy” to Hungary, 1944–1945

SS-Obergruppenführer Karl Pfeffer-Wildenbruch, commander of IX SS Mountain Corps

Antony Beevor, The Second World War. New York, NY, USA: Little, Brown and Company, 2012.

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

Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War, 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017.

Morse code by Thane Brown

Music composed and recorded by Nicolas Bury

There was a lot of action on the Eastern Front in the autumn of 1944. In late September, the Red Army and its new allies enter Yugoslavia and connect with communist Partisans led by a man called Tito. The results will echo across the decades.

The Lockheed P-38 Lightning and the Focke-Wulf fw189

The Yakovlev Yak-9 in flight

The Yakovlev Yak-9 in the Russian military museum

Josip Broz, a.k.a. Tito, far right, with his staff.

Antony Beevor, The Second World War. New York, NY, USA: Little, Brown and Company, 2012.

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

Giles Milton, The Stalin Affair: The impossible alliance that won the war. New York, NY, USA: Henry Holt and Company, 2022.

Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War, 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017.

Morse code by Thane Brown

Music composed and recorded by Nicolas Bury

In October 1944, the Red Army entered East Prussia, the heart of German militarism. Horrific war crimes ensued.

Konigsberg Castle before World War 1

German officers find evidence of massacre at Nemmersdorf, East Prussia

Civilians killed at Nemmersdorf, 1944

Antony Beevor, The Second World War. New York, NY, USA: Little, Brown and Company, 2012.

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

Pat McTaggart, "Goldap Operation: Soviets in the Prussian Heartland,” in WWII History, vol. 14, No. 2, February 2015. Cited in Warfare History Network, February 2015, https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/goldap-operation-soviets-in-the-prussian-heartland/

Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War, 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017.

Morse code by Thane Brown

Music composed and recorded by Nicolas Bury

In the autumn of 1944, nation after nation abandons the cruel, insane Axis to join the Western Allies or USSR: Romania, Bulgaria, Slovkia … as Finland signs an armistice with the USSR. With the Red Army on the border of Germany itself, Hungary faces the choice: to fight on with, or against, the nazis.

Map 1: The Red Army invades Slovakia

The Dukla Pass is to the right.

Map 2: The Battle of Debrecen

General (later Marshal) Rodion Malinovsky, 1944

General (later Marshal) Fyodor Tolbukhin, 1944

Marshal Ivan Konev, 1945

Milos Horthy, Regent of Hungary, 1944

Ferenc Szalisi, Leader of the Hungarian Nation, 1944

General Heinz Guderian, Inspector-General of the Army, 1944

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.

In August 1944, the Red Army steamrolled across eastern Europe. Yet when Warsaw rose up against the nazi occupiers, they found themselves alone.

Tadeusz Bor-Komorowski (right), Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Home Army

AK fighter with flamethrower

Home Army soldiers from Kolegium "A" of Kedyw formation on Stawki Street in the Wola District of Warsaw, September 1944. Source: Wikipedia Commons

Jewish POWs freed by AK

The remains of Warsaw after the Germans “withdrew.”

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

Norman Davies, Rising ’44: The Battle for Warsaw. London, UK: Macmillan, 2004.

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

Anthony Tucker-Jones,Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017.

Music by Nicolas Bury.

Morse code from Thane Brown.