WW2TV - Battlefield Livestreams and Interviews - 6 ª Season

80th Anniversary of Operation Iskra - Leningrad, January 1943 Part of Eastern Front Week (4) on WW2TV Although many history enthusiasts are aware that early 1943 saw the Red Army rise victorious over the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad, during that same time frame a lesser known, though equally important victory took places hundreds of miles to the north. Operation Iskra was when Soviet troops broke through German forces at "the bottleneck" thus breaking the siege of Leningrad. Our guest is historian Prit Buttar, who has written numerous excellent books on the Eastern Front. We are delighted he is returning to WW2TV once again, as the first of his two volumes about Leningrad will be released later this year.

The Eastern Front 1942/43 - a Summary of the Fronts with Indy Neidell Part of Eastern Front Week (4) on WW2TV In today's show will be offer a summary of the Eastern Front across the Fronts from the second half of 1942 up to the early part of 1943. Indy Neidell is an American-Swedish documentarian, actor, voice actor, musician and YouTube personality, best known for presenting the video series, The Great War on The Great War Channel - which documented World War I in real time using modern research, various secondary sources and archival footage. A similar project, World War Two (about World War II) began in September 2018.

Demyansk Pocket - a forerunner of the catastrophe at Stalingrad Part of Eastern Front Fortnight (4) on WW2TV With Sergey Vershinin Demyansk Pocket - a forerunner of the catastrophe at Stalingrad. The Red Army's unsuccessful attempts in 1942-1943 to overrun the German troops, offering stubborn resistance while encircled near a small town in Northwestern Russia, have been subject for decades to over-glorification by some German war historians and deliberately silenced by the Soviet and almost all Post-Soviet historiography. What was so special about this battle? Why did the success at Demyansk turn to one of the reasons for the Wehrmacht's subsequent catastrophe at Stalingrad? In today's show, we will talk about the Demyansk Pocket based on archival sources and personal evidence from both sides of the frontline. Sergey Vershinin studied Linguistics and Interpreting (German and English languages) in Russia and Germany and later Law in Russia. As an amateur historian he has spent almost 20 years collecting and researching first-hand evidence (mostly unpublished memoirs, diaries and letters of both Russians and Germans) as well as wartime documents on the Demyansk battle aiming to reconstruct a picture of events free of propaganda, stereotypes and myths. The reason for his interest was his grandfather's war faith, who fell near Demyansk in summer 1942 as a Red Army sergeant. The result of his research is an as yet unpublished manuscript in Russian titled Humans at War, compiled of eyewitness accounts, rarely mentioned Wehrmacht's and newly declassified Red Army's files where the war drama at Demyansk is focused on through the human lens.

We'll have the synopsis for you soon.

To Save An Army: The Stalingrad Airlift Part of Eastern Front Fortnight (4) on WW2TV With Robert Forsyth Stalingrad ranks as one of the most infamous, savage and emotive battles of the 20th century. It has consumed military historians since the 1950s and has inspired many books and much debate. In today's show we will tell the story of the operation mounted by the Luftwaffe to supply, by airlift, the trapped and exhausted German Sixth Army at Stalingrad in the winter of 1942/43. The weather conditions faced by the flying crews, mechanics, and soldiers on the ground were appalling, but against all odds, and a resurgent and active Soviet air force, the transports maintained a determined presence over the ravaged city on the Volga, even when the last airfields in the Stalingrad pocket had been lost. Yet, even the daily figure of 300 tons of supplies, needed by Sixth Army just to subsist, proved over-ambitious for the Luftwaffe which battled against a lack of transport capacity, worsening serviceability, and increasing losses in badly needed aircraft. Robert Forsyth is an author, editor and publisher, specialising in military aviation and military history. He is the author of over 25 titles for Osprey Publishing, on the aircraft, units and operations of the Luftwaffe, including Luftwaffe Special Weapons 192-45 and DUEL 97 Tempest V vs Fw 190D-9: 1944-45.