"The Collapse of the Third Reich" explores the strategic and human dimensions of Germany's defeat on the Eastern Front, emphasizing the Soviet Union's pivotal role in World War II's outcome. Featuring Prit Buttar and chaired by Alexandra Richie, DPhil, the session explores the massive scale of the Eastern Front, the evolution of Soviet battle strategy, the brutal nature of warfare, and the interplay between dictators Hitler and Stalin, offering a profound analysis of how the Eastern Front shaped the war's endgame and the postwar world.
This session is part of The National WWII Museum's 2024 International Conference on World War II presented by the Pritzker Military Foundation, on behalf of the Pritzker Military Museum & Library. For more information: https://www.nationalww2museum.org/about-us/notes-museum/2024-international-conference-world-war-ii
The International Conference on World War II is the premier adult educational event bringing together the best and brightest scholars, authors, historians, and witnesses to history from around the globe to discuss key battles, personalities, strategies, issues, and controversies of the war that changed the world. Joining the featured speakers are hundreds of attendees who travel from all over the world to learn and connect with each other through engaging discussions, question-and-answer periods, book signings, and receptions throughout the weekend.
Prit Buttar is a retired doctor and historian specializing in the Eastern Front of both world wars. He studied medicine at St. John’s College at Oxford and King’s College Hospital in London before joining the British army, serving as a surgeon and medical officer. He became a civilian family doctor in 1992 and retired in 2019. Buttar wrote his first book, Battleground Prussia (2010), after a chance conversation with an elderly patient who had fled from East Prussia in 1945. This was followed by Between Giants (2013), an account of World War II in the Baltic States; a four-volume account of the Eastern Front in World War I; three volumes covering the southern sector of the Eastern Front from late 1942 to late 1944; a history of the battles for the Rzhev Salient in 1942; a book about the Lithuanian Holocaust; and a two-volume ac count of the Siege of Leningrad. His forthcoming works include books about Operation Bagration (to be published next year), the Vistula-Oder Operation, and the Battle of Berlin. Buttar moved to Scotland in 2016, where he pursues interests in astrophotography and wildlife photography and lives in a beautiful rural region with his wife, Debbie, two border collies (Hamish and Dougal), two horses (Bella and Cosmo), and three mini Shetland ponies (Rambo, Conan, and Rocky).
Alexandra Richie is a historian of Germany and Central and Eastern Europe, with a specialization in defense and security issues. She completed her BA (Hons) in political science at the University of Victoria and went on to study at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, where she wrote her doctoral thesis, “The Political Manipulation of History in East and West Germany.” Richie is also the author of Faust’s Metropolis: A History of Berlin, which was named one of the top 10 books of the year by Publishers Weekly, and Warsaw 1944: Hitler, Himmler, and the Warsaw Uprising, which won the Newsweek Teresa Toranska Prize for best nonfiction book of 2014 and the Kazimierz Moczarski Prize for Best History Book 2015. She has contributed to many articles, documentaries, radio, and television programs, and is the Past Convener of the Presidential Counselors at The National WWII Museum. Richie is also a member of the Senate at the Collegium Civitas University in Warsaw, Poland, and the Władysław Bartoszewski co-chair of History and International Studies at the Collegium Civitas.