The Eastern Front

The Second World War in Eastern Europe is far from a neglected topic, especially since social, cultural, and diplomatic historians have entered a field previously dominated by operational histories, and produced a cornucopia of new scholarship offering a more nuanced picture from both sides of the front. However, until now, the story has still been disjointed and specialized, whereby military, social, economic, and diplomatic histories continue to give their own separate accounts. This collection of essays attempts to bring these themes into a more cohesive whole that tells a complex, multifaceted story of war on the Eastern Front as it truly was. This is one of the few critical examinations that includes both perspectives and looks at the war as a multi-front effort. It also reveals how myths are created around military conflicts and have direct relevance to current developments in Europe, linking them to a broader discussion of the Second World War, its impact and utility today. It gives a historical dimension to pressing issues and will be of interest and relevance to history students, policymakers, political scientists, diplomats, and foreign policy experts. The Eastern Front will be a useful reference source, since some chapters rely on extensive new archival research and materials, ego sources, as well as extensive findings of non-Western scholars, thereby bringing their work to the attention of a broader audience.

Yan Mann is an Associate Clinical Professor of History and the Program Lead of World War II Studies Master's degree program at Arizona State University. His research interests include the relationship between individual and collective memory, the Stalin cult, censorship, and propaganda. He is the author of "Situating Stalin in the history of the Second World War," in the edited volume, The Memory of the Second World War in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia (2022) and "Manufactured Memory: Crafting the Cult of the Great Patriotic War," in the edited volume, Terrortimes, Terrorscapes: Continuities of Space, Time, and Memory in Twentieth-Century War and Genocide (2022). Olga Kucherenko is a Faculty Associate at World War II Studies Master's degree program at Arizona State University. Her research interests include conflict-based propaganda, wartime childhood, and allied relations. She is the author of Soviet Street Children and the Second World War: Welfare and Social Control under Stalin (2016) and Little Soldiers: How Soviet Children Went to War, 1941-1945 (2011).

Introduction OLGA KUCHERENKO and YAN MANN PART I Frontlines - German Army Command Culture on the Eastern Front DAVID STAHEL - Soviet Strategy and Operations in the Great Patriotic War: Stalin, the Stavka and the General Staff ALEXANDER HILL - The Soviet Soldier at War: Discipline, Motivation, and Morale ROGER REESE - Greyzone Stalingrad: Civilian Experience of the Battle OLGA KUCHERENKO PART II Behind the Frontlines - The German Army's Economic Policy and Occupation JEFF RUTHERFORD - Settlers of the Reich: The Germans of Hitler's Frontier JACOB FLAWS - In Their Words: Soviet Women in the Ranks of Soviet Intelligence During World War Two REGINA KAZYULINA - Ordinary Men with Guns: Police, Partisans, and Civil War in the German-Occupied Soviet Countryside KENNETH SLEPYAN PART III International Front - The Soviet Elephant and the British Whale: War Strategy and Struggle for Influence in Central and Eastern Europe (1941-45) ISKANDER MAGADEEV - Winning Friends and Influencing Allies: Soviet Public Diplomacy Initiatives, 1941-5 OLGA KUCHERENKO - American Anti-Stalinists in Defense of the USSR: The Socialist Workers Party, the Nazi-Soviet War, and Intransigent Revolutionism JASON DAWSEY PART IV Memory Front - The Forgotten: Challenging Brezhnev's Cult of the Great Patriotic War YAN MANN - Unwitnessed Memories or Destroy After Reading: the Survival and Suppression of Testimony in the USSR ASIA KOVRIGINA - The Museum of the Defense of Leningrad and the Late-Stalinist Assault on Memory ANYA FREE