World War Two is the most documented conflict in history — and Explaining History has covered it from almost every angle. From Operation Barbarossa to the Blitz, from the fall of Malaya to the liberation of Europe, from Nazi ideology to the displaced millions of 1945, the podcast’s World War Two archive spans over fifty episodes across a dozen distinct theatres and themes.
Because the topic is so broad, we’ve organised the archive into dedicated collections by theatre and theme. Each collection below brings together the most essential episodes on that subject, with more added as new episodes are published. This page serves as your starting point — follow the links to explore the full collections as they go live.
Start Here: Three Essential Episodes
New to the World War Two archive? These three episodes offer a good introduction to the range of the collection — the ideological engine of the war, the Eastern Front experience, and Britain’s preparation for the conflict.
LebensraumLebensraum
Full Description:Meaning “Living Space,” this was a central tenet of Nazi ideology. It argued that the German people needed to expand eastward to survive, necessitating the displacement, enslavement, and extermination of the indigenous Slavic and Jewish populations of Eastern Europe. Lebensraum was a colonial fantasy applied to the European continent. Hitler viewed the East (Poland, Ukraine, Russia) much as 19th-century Americans viewed the West: a frontier to be conquered and settled. The indigenous populations were viewed as “superfluous eaters” who occupied land that rightfully belonged to the Aryan “master race.”
Critical Perspective:Critically, this concept situates the Holocaust within the broader history of imperialism and settler colonialism. The war in the East was a war for resources (grain and oil) and land, justified by racial theory. The genocide of the Jews was inextricably linked to this colonial project, as they were viewed as the primary obstacle to the Germanization of the East.
Read more, Genocide and Nazi Colonial Utopias 1941–45
StalinStalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician, dictator and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. Read More’s War (Part One)
Britain, Germany and the Blitz
Browse by Theatre and Theme
The following dedicated collections are being built from the Explaining History archive. Each will bring together 8–12 episodes on that specific subject. Collections marked coming soon are in preparation.
- Nazi Germany: Ideology, Terror and the Third Reich — coming soon
- The Eastern Front: Barbarossa to Berlin — coming soon
- Occupied Europe: CollaborationCollaboration
Full Description:The cooperation of local governments, police forces, and citizens in German-occupied countries with the Nazi regime. The Holocaust was a continental crime, reliant on French police, Dutch civil servants, and Ukrainian militias to identify and deport victims. Collaboration challenges the narrative that the Holocaust was solely a German crime. across Europe, local administrations assisted the Nazis for various reasons: ideological agreement (antisemitism), political opportunism, or bureaucratic obedience. In many cases, local police rounded up Jews before German forces even arrived.
Critical Perspective:This term reveals the fragility of social solidarity. When their Jewish neighbors were targeted, many European societies chose to protect their own national sovereignty or administrative autonomy by sacrificing the minority. It complicates the post-war myths of “national resistance” that many European countries adopted to hide their complicity.
Read more, Resistance and the Holocaust — coming soon - Britain’s War 1939–45: The Blitz, the Desert War and the Home Front — coming soon
- The USA and the War — coming soon
- The War in Asia and the Pacific — coming soon
- India and the War — coming soon
- The Middle East and North Africa — coming soon
- The Air War — coming soon
- The War’s Aftermath 1945–50: Displaced Persons, Nuremberg and the New World Order — coming soon
