Ghosts of the Ostfront: A Review

After much delay, I’ve finally got around to downloading and listening to Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History Series “Ghosts of the Ostfront”. For those unfamiliar with Dan Carlin he does a popular podcast series called “hardcore History” where he takes a period or event from history and discusses it at length. “Ghosts of the Ostfront” is a four part podcast covering the Eastern Front of World War II starting with the launching of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941 going to the fall of Berlin in May 1945.

First, I’ll discuss the good. I found Carlin’s accounting of the Eastern Front as compelling and factually correct as was his work in his World War I series, Blueprint for Armageddon, although far less detailed (more on that later). Carlin has a real talent for not just giving the facts of what happened, but also bringing to the listener a sense of what it was like for those who were there and lived through these events along with a good understanding how these events tie together with and lead to other events. He excels at laying out a story that allows one to gain a better understanding of history. In short, he makes history fascinating. In this regard, I found his work on Ghosts of the Ostfront excellent. Carlin’s use of quotes and firsthand accounts sprinkled around the factual matters of the Eastern Front throughout the series was especially enjoyable and served to bring Ghosts of the Ostfront to life. He did an excellent job giving insights into the thinking of the men who orchestrated the War in the East on both sides. He didn’t just tell what they did, but why they did those things. Then there is the matter of the impact of the war on the civilians caught in the middle of this nightmare, the Jews, the Russians, Poles, and even the Germans themselves. Carlin did a masterful job of giving the listener a view into what these peoples endured and how the war altered the lives of these groups for decades.

Now to the bad. While Carlin as usual does a masterful job at telling the story of his subject matter. I did end the series a bit disappointed. I was not let down by anything he discussed or said in the series, rather I was let down by what he did not say. My complaint boils down to the fact that he barely scratched the surface of the hell that was the Eastern Front of WWII. Yes he discussed matters such as the German invasion in 1941 and the Soviets stopping the Germans at the gates of Moscow that December. There was somewhat lengthy discussion on things like the Battles of Stalingrad, Leningrad, Kursk, Operation Bagration, the Polish Uprising, and the Fall of Berlin and the hell that brought to the German civilian population. But there was no mention of pivotal battles like the Crimea or the Battle(s) of Kharkov just to name two that come to mind right away. The fact Carlin seems to have simply skimmed the surface of the Eastern Front, hitting only the usual high points is made even more irritating due to the fact he discusses more than once in this series how Western Historians have long ignored or given short service to the study of the Eastern Front, and yet he is guilty of the same thing in Ghosts of the Ostfront.

Basically my main complaint boils down to the fact that Carlin leaves us wanting more. More details, more compressive analysis of the Eastern Front, just more. Yes Ghosts of the Ostfront was very enjoyable, there just was not enough of it. I come away from listening to Ghosts of the Ostfront feeling like I’ve just sat through a 9th grade World History class where the teacher (albeit a great teacher) is spending four days lecturing on the Eastern Front. Yes it was interesting, but it was still only a 9th grade level lecture.

My final verdict on Ghosts of the Ostfront is that it’s a compelling series, even if it’s incomplete. I really wish he’d have given more time to this series. Ghosts of the Ostfront is only four parts, to do the story of the Eastern Front justice, it should be at least twice as long. To anyone who does not know much about the Eastern Front, you will learn a good deal by listening to this four part series. To those who have a deeper understanding of the Eastern Front, you likewise will enjoy it, just be ready to come away wishing there was more.