“THE GREATEST MILITARY STRUGGLE”

“IT WAS MORE BRUTAL THAN ANY OTHER CAMPAIGN OF WWII, AND ON A SCALE OF ATROCITY THAT BEGGARS BELIEF”

Operation Barbarossa has received different interpretations from historians over the past eight decades. Although it has been written about many times, Western academics have often focussed on Barbarossa’s purely military aspects. Nevertheless, Jonathan Dimbleby has written a new general history that tells the story of the operation in all its vast complexity. A British historian, journalist and filmmaker, Dimbleby reveals the unfathomable brutality that characterised Barbarossa, its consequences for European history and how it’s remembered in different countries.

What new direction did you want to take in how to tell the story of the operation?

There have been many books written about Barbarossa but there haven’t actually been that