In honour of Remembrance Day, also called Veterans’ Day and Armistice Day, here is an excerpt, part of a World War II soldier’s account of the reality of being a prisoner of the nazis.
Horror in East Prussia—Episode 88: The Red Army enters Germany – Beyond Barbarossa: The Eastern Front of World War 2
In October 1944, the Red Army entered East Prussia, the heart of German militarism. Horrific war crimes ensued.
Map 1: The Red Army’s advances all across the broad front
Map 2a: European Theatre, 1 October 1944
Map 2b: European Theatre, 1 November 1944
Map 3a: The Pacific Theatre, 1 October 1944
Map 3b: The Pacific Theatre, 1 November 1944
Map 4: The Gumbinnen Operation
Historical photos
Konigsberg Castle before World War 1
German officers find evidence of massacre at Nemmersdorf, East Prussia
Civilians killed at Nemmersdorf, 1944
Sources
Antony Beevor, The Second World War. New York, NY, USA: Little, Brown and Company, 2012.
Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.
Pat McTaggart, "Goldap Operation: Soviets in the Prussian Heartland,” in WWII History, vol. 14, No. 2, February 2015. Cited in Warfare History Network, February 2015, https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/goldap-operation-soviets-in-the-prussian-heartland/
Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War, 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017.
Morse code by Thane Brown
Music composed and recorded by Nicolas Bury
- Horror in East Prussia—Episode 88: The Red Army enters Germany
- The Axis collapses: Beyond Barbarossa, episode 87
- Stalled on the Baltic Coast: USSR vs. the wehrmacht, Episode 86
- Everywhere, all at once: Episode 85—East and West, north and south, 1944
- A promise fulfilled: Help for Ukrainian refugees—special episode
This excerpt came from Army of Worn Soles: Volume 1 of the Eastern Front Trilogy, the true story of a Canadian drafted into the Soviet Red Army, 1941–1945.
Learn more about Army of Worn Soles.