Hi. Love your YouTube series!
I remember reading a passing reference to Soviet observers in Normandy, 1944. I don’t remember the book, and I haven’t encountered other mentions of Soviet observers in Western Europe. Were there any American or British observers on the Eastern Front at any time?
American observers certainly were. For example Finland maintained diplomatic relations with the USA during the war and hence there are photographs (in SA-Kuva.fi archives) where German, Italian, Japanese, French (presumably Vichy French), Swedish, and American officers are posing together for a group photo… Dated to 2nd of October 1942.
Thank you WandererRTF. That is very interesting. I hadn’t thought about Finnish-American relations in 1942. So, American military observers rubbed elbows with enemy Japanese and German observers on the Finnish side of the front. Amazing!
I was actually asking about American observers on the Soviet side of the Eastern Front. I have read quite a bit about how secretive the Soviets were towards the Western Allies during the war, and accepting American observers seems out of character. Yet, there was that reference I once read of Soviet observers in Normandy. Was that reciprocated?
I was just about to ask this same question. I found 2 people with some pretty crazy stories.
Joseph Beyrle - 501st Paratroops- Dropped into Normandy, was captured, trained into a POW camp, escaped, serverd in Russian Tank Unit on Eastern front. He even met Zhukov!
M.J. Nichoals Burlak - He was a born American and migrated to Ukraine during the depression, so he never served in US army, but he did serve in the Russian army in a T34, fought, wounded, found a nurse wife, and made it all the way to the Riechstag when Berlin fell. He wrote on its wall, his signature is the only one in English. He wrote a book to. “Love and War” though I haven’t read it.
I would love to see a deep dive into a Biography episode of both of these guys.
Forgot to include the photo ID: 52493, using that number in search field of sa-kuva.fi should give the image. But as said, there are plenty more.
Romania is a weird case here - despite being allied with Nazi Germany, they had a rather lax attitude to British spies. There is a famous hotel in the middle of Bucharest called the Athenee Palace, right next to the imposing Romanian Atheneum (Conservatory), which was notorious for hosting both Gestapo and British spies. (probably even at the same time)
This meant that information from the Romanian side was easily filtered out, often times via Istanbul, so the Allies had a good grasp of what was going on here.
Bonus - Athenee Palace is subject to a number of books and even a TV series called Fortunes of War with Kenneth Branagh.