Operation Barbarossa. Then and now

20 May 2021 - Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 marked a new and more savage stage in the history of the Second World War. Within months, German armies had penetrated deep into the Soviet territory, capturing millions of prisoners (many of whom were starved to death), and murdering almost a million Jews. Despite the brutality of Stalin’s rule, the population largely rallied behind him. Britain proclaimed him a ‘welcome guest at a hungry table’ and sent vital supplies. To understand the course and significance of the first months of Operation Barbarossa, and to discuss what they mean for relations between Russia and the West today, the Centre for Geopolitics brings together a distinguished lecturer and respondent.

Chair: Bridget Kendall is Master of Peterhouse. She was Diplomatic Correspondent of the BBC and reported from Moscow for many years.

Lecturer: Jonathan Dimbleby is a broadcaster and writer. In addition to Barbarossa. How Hitler lost the war (London, 2021), he is the author of The Battle of the Atlantic (2015) and Destiny in the desert. The road to El Alamein (2012)

Respondent: Professor Claudia Weber is Professor for Contemporary European History at the European University – Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder) University of Frankfurt /Oder. She is the author of a book on the Hitler-Stalin Pact: Der Pakt. Stalin, Hitler und die Geschichte einer mörderischen Allianz (Munich, 2019) and has written extensively on the role of historical memory in Central and Eastern Europe.