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Podcast: New Books in German Studies
Episode: Antonio J. Muñoz, "Hitler's War Against the Partisans During Operation Barbarossa: June 1941 to the Spring of 1942" (Frontline, 2025)
Description: A detailed history of Nazi anti-partisan warfare on the Eastern Front during Operation Barbarossa.
From the start of the war on the Eastern Front, Hitler's Ostheer, his Eastern Army, would wage a vernichtungskrieg, or war of annihilation, in the East. Never before had such a wide-reaching campaign been fought.
Preparations for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union had included the drawing up of plans and allocation of resources to secure the newly conquered territories. These plans included the premeditated murder of many innocent civilians. Adolf Hitler said as much when in July 1941, shortly after Stalin...