The Axis invasion of the Soviet Union 85 years ago marked a monumental turning point in history. Across a front of almost 1,000 miles, over 3.5 million Axis forces advanced into Soviet territory, beginning the first step of what would become...
Peter is a global defence correspondent, commentator and author. For this issue’s Frontline he spoke with Louis Hardiman about a potential conflict between China and Taiwan’s Western Allies (p18). Craig is a retired US Air Force historian...
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Anthony Tucker-jones recounts Army Group Centre’s devastating offensive in June 1941
Having survived the Great Purge, this officer set about shoring up the seemingly doomed Soviet defences When Adolf Hitler launched the might of the Nazi military machine against the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, the sheer scale of the onslaught...
Craig Luther discusses how Heinz Guderian applied drills and doctrine to his panzer operations
Driven by paranoia, Stalin stripped the Red Army of its most talented officers ahead of its darkest hour On 11 June 1937, Marshal of the Soviet Union Mikhail Tukhachevsky stood looking at the board of judges assembled to try him. Tukhachevsky was...
Beginning in the early hours of 22 June, Hitler’s invasion involved over 3.5 million personnel Luftwaffe officer Hans-joachim Herrmann was on duty in the early hours of 22 June 1941: “The signals operator passed me a teleprinter message. It...
Richard Hargreaves unpacks the attritional operation to seize Stalin’s Black Sea fortress Our army today is no longer the army of 22 June,” said a Wehrmacht panzer commander. The nine months of campaigning since the Third Reich had betrayed...
Anthony Capel Miers was born in Inverness, Scotland, on 11 November 1906 into a military family. Tragedy dogged him as a child: less than six weeks into the First World War, his father, a captain in the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders, was...
