Stalin Archives

This week we hear from William Welsh, editor of Military Heritage Magazine, who's compiled a list of personal favorites for books on World War II.

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William Welsh’s Best World War II Books List

William Welsh, editor of Military Heritage Magazine, has compiled a list of personal favorites for books on the Second World War. Read more

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Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill Meet in Tehran

World War II made a disparate trio of allies—British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Soviet Marshal Josef Stalin, and American President Franklin D. Read more

Prime Minister Winston Churchill provided inspiration to the British people and the Allied cause during World War II.

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Prime Minister Winston Churchill Led his Nation During World War II

by Mike Haskew

Born November 30, 1874, to British politician Lord Randolph Churchill and Jenny Jerome, an American socialite, Winston Churchill rose to serve in Parliament and as Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1940 to 1945 and 1951 to 1955. Read more

Adolf Hitler rose from obscurity to lead the Nazi Party to power in Germany and embarked on a campaign of conquest and destruction.

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Adolf Hitler Led Germany To Ruin In World War II

by Mike Haskew

Born in Branau, Austria, on April 20, 1889, Adolf Hitler rose to lead the Nazi Party in Germany during the 1920s and was appointed the nation’s chancellor in 1933. Read more

Stalking in the shadows, snipers played an important role in World War II just as much as any tank, airplane or artillery piece.

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Training Stalin’s Red Army Sharpshooters

by Kevin Hymel

Captain Valsily Zaytsev was the Soviet Union’s most famous sniper, killing an estimated 400 Germans, but other snipers also racked up impressive numbers. Read more

For centuries Königsberg had been one of the most important cities of Germany; its capture was the finale of a two-month Soviet siege.

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Conquering Königsberg Fortress

by Bastiaan Willems

The storming of Fortress Königsberg in April 1945 was the finale of a two-month Soviet siege. The city, one of the few triumphs of Hitler’s fortress strategy, had been encircled by late January and lay hundreds of kilometers behind the main front line by the time the Soviets launched their final assault toward the Nazi capital of Berlin. Read more

In August 1944, the Allies followed up the massive Normandy Invasion with another in southern France known as Operation Dragoon.

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Rampage on the Riviera: Operation Dragoon

By Glenn Barnette and André Bernole

Early in 1944, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the defeated hero of North Africa and now head of Army Group B in France, was tasked with strengthening the Atlantic Wall defenses against Allied invasion. Read more

German Panzers under General Heinz Guderian captured the Ukraine in 1941.

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Guderian’s Last Victory

By Jeff Chrisman

The first time Adolf Hitler ventured into the captured territory of the Soviet Union was six weeks into the campaign on August 4, 1941, when he traveled to Borisov to the headquarters of Army Group Center and its commander, Field Marshal Fedor von Bock. Read more

In spite of a tenacious defense, the Soviet Red Army overwhelmed the Germans in the Austrian capital of Vienna.

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A Soviet Red Army Victory at Vienna

by Major General Michael Reynolds

In mid-March 1945, the Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Red Army launched a major offensive with the aim of clearing Axis forces out of Hungary and forcing them back to the very borders of Hitler’s Greater German Reich. Read more

It was the end of April, 1945. And, very soon it would be V-E Day: the end for the German dictator Adolf Hitler, his despotic Nazi regime, and the war in Europe.

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V-E Day: Victory at Last for World War II’s Allies

By Flint Whitlock

Within his reinforced concrete bunker, 50 feet below the garden of the New Reichs Chancellery on Berlin’s Wilhelmstrasse, German dictator Adolf Hitler, his soon-to-be bride Eva Braun, and several hundred friends, SS guards, and staff members could feel the concussion and hear the unending drumroll of thousands of Soviet artillery shells reducing the already-battered capital city of the Third Reich to unrecognizable rubble. Read more

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Cauldron of Death: the Demyansk Salient and the Eastern Front

by Pat McTaggart

On the vast Eastern Front, the Demyansk salient represented little more than a smudge on the battle map. Read more

During Operation Frantic on the Eastern Front, American bombers used Soviet bases for shuttle runs against the Axis targets.

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Operation Frantic On Eastern Front: Preview Of the Cold War

by Wil Deac

Early on the overcast afternoon of June 2, 1944, three white-starred Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses in V-formation roared over the Soviet air base at Poltava. Read more

Intrigue still surrounds the execution of Mussolini and his mistress Claretta Petacci by communist partisans in 1945.

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The Killing of Il Duce

By Blaine Taylor

At 3 am on Sunday, April 29, 1945, a yellow furniture truck stopped at the Piazzale Loreto, a vast, open traffic roundabout where five roads intersected in the northern Italian city of Milan. Read more

The Supermarine Spitfire was Britain's first line of defense in the Battle of Britain in 1940. Afterward it helped the Allies turn the tide of war on multiple fronts.

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The Supermarine Spitfire and the Battle of Britain

by William F. Floyd Jr.

On March 5, 1936, the new Supermarine Type 300 took off from Southampton, England. The plane would soon be called the Spitfire, and along with the Hawker Hurricane it would become Great Britain’s first line of defense. Read more