Eastern Front

So I've read I've read a couple of books about mercenaries who fought there just as like something entertaining and ball deployed, basically.

But in terms of like my my scope of historical study centers around Eastern Front of World War Two.

OK.

Theater.

I will.

But you brought up a couple things there that are kind of fascinating.

I always go back to on the Eastern Front, Battle of Kursk being very, very micromanaged.

Hitler basically ignored everybody, all the warning signs.

That's why Romania-- We were talking about, you know, I made the point that Antonescu was, I believe, Hitler's best ally in a lot of ways.

He, he wasn't as close personally as, to the Führer as Mussolini was, but Romania committed a-- Relative to the size of the population, Romania committed a huge contingent of men to the Eastern Front.

Antonescu was a war hero in his own right.

Uh, he was a holder of the Knight's Cross.

You know, thousands upon thousands of these men joined the Waffen-SS, and nowhere was the sympathy more kind of sharp than in the Baltics.

And, uh, Army Group North, as it kind of smashed through the Baltics en route to its, uh, objective of Leningrad, you know, the people in the Baltic States, you know, they rose up against the Red Army.

You know, so the Red Army was fighting not just the Wehrmacht, it was fighting, you know, people in places like Belarus, people in the Baltic States, people in Ukraine, you know, who had risen up against their communist overlords, okay? Like, a lot of what people claim about what was happening in the Eastern Front in the early days was totally at odds with what actually happened.

Um, the, uh, the German, uh, in terms of, in terms of aircraft, uh, the exchange attrition rate was something insane, like, you know, one to one hundred and thirty-one favoring the Germans.

So, from like 36, 37 onward, it would be Italy and I'm of the belief that Romania was first and foremost Germany's best ally.

They committed a huge contingent of men in scaled terms to the Eastern Front.

And Antonescu, you know, he was the Marshal of Romania, I.N. Antonescu.

He was a holder of the Knight's Cross and just a real badass, but also he really had Hitler's back and vice versa.

My next guest is Brit Putar, and we will be discussing his book Into the Reich, The Red Army's Advance to the Odor in 1945, published by Osprey Publishing in 2025.

Brit Kutar is an established expert on the Eastern Front in 20th century military history, and his previous books include the critically acclaimed two-volume series On the Siege of Leningrad, To Besiege a City, published by Osprey in 2023 and previously featured on the New Books Network, and Hero City, also published by Osprey in 2024.

He now lives in France.

Prit Putar, welcome back to the New Books Network.

It's just enormous.

So by doing it in two volumes, I thought it was... a way of making it more digestible, shall we say.

Yes, and you came up with some other volumes regarding the Eastern Front, and we'll definitely get into that at the end of the discussion.

But yeah, I even, as I mentioned, I just got your book on Bagration, and I'm looking forward to your work on the Battle for Berlin.

He would consequently be involved in some of the planning for the Battle of Britain which now commenced, though Hitler would soon lose interest in trying to defeat Britain and his attentions would wander eastwards to the Soviet Union.

Before Paulus was sent to the Eastern Front for what would become Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the USSR in the summer of 1941, he was charged with observing what the strategic situation was in Italy and North Africa in the late spring of 1941.

The Italians had entered the war early in June 1940.

Their major theatres of activity in the year that followed were in North Africa and the Balkans.

It is evident from snippets of information like this that Paulus had serious doubts about Hitler's overall capacity to lead the German war effort.

At a meeting with Hitler at the Wolf's Lair headquarters in Prussia on the 6th of August 1941, Paulus subtly raised some of his reservations to little effect.

Instead, he and Guderian, whose tank divisions were now working closely with the 6th Army on the Eastern Front, expressed concern that they were being ordered into Ukraine to seize Kyiv.

Paulus and Guderian contended that Moscow was surely the priority, and a diversion of a significant proportion of the Wehrmacht southwards to Kyiv would make it impossible to secure Moscow before the winter set in.

That's why Romania, we were talking about, you know, I made the point that Antonescu was, I believe, Hitler's best ally in a lot of ways.

He, he wasn't as close personally as, to the Führer as Mussolini was, but Romania committed a, relative to the size of the population, Romania committed a huge contingent of men to the Eastern Front.

Antonescu was a war hero in his own right.

Uh, he was a holder of the Knight's Cross.

You know, thousands upon thousands of these men joined the Waffen-SS, and nowhere was the sympathy more kind of sharp than in the Baltics.

And, uh, Army Group North, as it kind of smashed through the Baltics en route to its, uh, objective of Leningrad, you know, the people in the Baltic states, you know, they rose up against the Red Army.

You know, so the Red Army was fighting not just the Wehrmacht, it was fighting, you know, people in places like Belarus, people in the Baltic states, people in Ukraine, you know, who had risen up against their communist overlords, okay? Like, a lot of what people claim about what was happening in the Eastern Front in the early days was totally at odds with what actually happened.

Um, the, uh, the German, uh, in terms of, in terms of aircraft, uh, the exchange attrition rate was something insane, like, you know, one to 131 favoring the Germans.

So Göring, on this date, he requested that Hitler grant him ba- basic assurances relating succession of government in event of Hitler's death.

So the following day on 6/29, 1941, uh, Hitler drafted the secret decree which became the codicil, confirming Göring as the sole successor and identifying him as, you know, the Führer's, quote, "deputy in all offices." Now, why was Hitler so positively disposed towards Göring? Again, at this point, um, you know, literally a week into the Barbarossa campaign, the Luftwaffe had enjoyed just massive technological supremacy on the Eastern Front, totally unprecedented.

Erhard Milch, speaking of, of, of Milch, his diary, which was, uh, which was voluminous and prolific, and it, and it, and, uh, contained, uh, it shows you what a pure soldier and exec- and executive Milch was.

It, it contained a, a handful of, a kind of funny euphemisms about girlfriends and when Milch got lucky, like in his own [laughs], his own kind of little code.

Um, it, uh, Jackson, uh, he, uh, apparently years later it was relayed that, and this is in the book Judgment at Nuremberg, which became, you know, a film.

Uh, it's not in the film, but, uh, during a meeting of the, uh, the prosecutorial team, you know, J- Jackson, he became histrion- positively histrionic, and he said that, you know, "If, if, if, if, if this court holds and we have no case against Schacht, you know, we have no case against any industrialist or any of these defendants.

You know, the case against him is the strongest case we have." Which is ridiculous, okay? I mean, what, uh, it's, um, even, even if one accepts kind of the, the good faith, uh, even if one accepts in good faith the, uh, allegations of the, of the Nuremberg indictment, I mean, do they, do they think that people like Kaltenbrunner and before him Heydrich and, and, and Himmler and, and the Führer were, were, were talk- were talk- were talking to their banker friend Hjalmar Schacht about how to deal with, you know, racial undesirables on the Eastern Front? I mean, [laughs] like how would this even work? You know what I mean?

You could-

Um, and so these men would've known when they were taken prisoner that if you didn't volunteer to fight for the Germans, it was pretty likely that you would starve to death in a camp.

They were often used to counter Soviet partisan forces on the Eastern Front until late in 1943 when there was this scandal, I suppose.

There was this perceived sense that if you had these Soviet forces fighting on the Eastern Front, they would desert, they would not be reliable, they would help the locals instead of fight for the Germans like they were supposed to.

And so in late 1943, they were transferred to the Western Front instead to limit their ability to fuck off or to not do their jobs.

In late 1944, the Russians under German command were formed into a separate group under the command of captured Russian General Andrei Vlasov, and this was called the Russian Liberation Army.

He gives them additional food so that they can appear healthy like the German soldiers are, and they're also making hilarious Hitler jokes at this point.

Yes, I really laughed out loud at the one about Hitler sees a guy giving him the salute when no one else is giving the Nazi salute, so he tells the guy he's gonna give him a medal, and the guy's like, "Oh, no, I wasn't doing the salute.

I was just putting my arm up to show you how deep in shit you guys are on the Eastern Front."

So from like '36, '37 onward, it would, it would, it would be Italy and Rom- I'd, I'm of the belief that Romania was first and foremost, uh, Germany's best ally.

They, they, they, they committed a huge contingent of men in scaled terms to, uh, the Eastern Front.

And, uh, Antonescu, uh, you know, he was the, uh, he was the Marshal of Romania, Ion Antonescu.

He was a holder of the Knight's Cross and, and just a real badass.