WWII & Beyond:
Dr Falkov's Historical Corner
Researcher, Writer, Lecturer & Photographer.
Welcome to my website! As a professional Historian, I aim to enrich our knowledge about World War II and improve our understanding of this terrible and fascinating event. Read some of my work below, ranging from published articles and books to more informal blog posts.
"Den der vover, mister fodfæste for en tid.
Den der intet vover, mister sig selv"
("To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily.
Not to dare is to lose oneself")
Søren Kierkegaard
About Me
I am a visiting lecturer on insurgency and counterinsurgency history and theory at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center/Israel, a former visiting research fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and a current research fellow at the Oxford University and Yad Vashem. I published a book Forest Spies. The Intelligence Activity of the Soviet Partisans (Magnes Press and Yad Vashem Press: Jerusalem, 2017), as well as scientific articles on the Soviet Partisan movement and the guerrilla warfare during WWII. My latest publication analyzes the development and the operational activity of the Soviet guerrillas in the Baltic Region during WWII (See: "Between the Nazi Hammer and the Soviet Anvil: The Untold Story of the Red Guerrillas in the Baltic Region", in Christopher Murray (ed.), Forgotten Fronts: The Unknown Conflicts of the Second World War, London, Routledge, January 2019).
My News
MY NEW BOOK!!!
Between Hitler and Churchill. Two Jewish Agents and the Attempt by the British Intelligence to Stop the Secret Polish-Nazi Negotiations
(The Hebrew Edition is due to be published in 2021).
For the first time in WWII historiography, this book unveils the existence of secret Polish-Nazi negotiations in 1940-41. Multiple archival documents, only recently discovered by the author in England, Poland, Israel and the U.S., prove beyond any doubt that shortly after the escape of the Polish émigré government to England, in June 1940, one of its senior figures, probably backed by Polish leader Wladyslaw Sikorski, had initiated a series of covert contacts with senior Nazi diplomats, for the purpose of establishing a pro-Nazi puppet government in Warsaw and taking Poland out of the German-British military conflict.
My Chapter ‘Between the Nazi Hammer and the Soviet Anvil: The Untold Story of the Red Guerrillas in the Baltic Region, 1941-1945’,
in Christopher Murray (ed.), Forgotten Fronts: The Unknown Conflicts of the Second World War (London: Routledge, 2019)
My Lecture at the Heidelberg University, Germany, on 23 April 2019
Lectures Title: 'Jews as a Nation are Exterminated, as Everywhere Else: The Murder of the USSR and European Jews as Reflected in Reports Submitted by the Soviet Intelligence and Security Agencies'
My Research Projects
Oxford Project
A Transnational Approach to Resistance in Europe, 1936-48
USHMM & Yad Vashem Project
Spying the Evil: The Soviet Intelligence and Security Community Faces the Holocaust, 1939-45
My Lectures for Different Audiences
'Jews as a Nation are Exterminated, as Everywhere Else': The Murder of the USSR and European Jews as Reflected in Reports Submitted by the Soviet Intelligence and Security Agencies
This lecture provides a detailed description of my current archival revelations concerning the Kremlin's knowledge about the Holocaust in the Nazi-occupied Soviet and European territories.
Forest Spies: The Intelligence Activity of the Soviet Partisans
This lecture describes the previously unknown intelligence dimension of the Soviet guerrillas' activity in the Nazi-occupied Soviet and Eastern-European territories.
‘Spanish Matrix’:
The Transnational Catalyzer of the European Anti-Nazi Resistance
This lecture presents a fascinating and previously unknown picture of the Spanish Civil War veterans' influence on the development and activity of the European and the Soviet anti-Nazi resistance during World War II.
My Books, Chapters & Articles
Expand Your Bookshelf
International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence
Special Issue: Double Agents & Moles
‘Tried and Trusted Patriots’ for the CIA: Latvian Case Study of the KGB Operativnaia Igra Theory
(to be published in 2021)
This article uses the newly acquired relevant American and Soviet sources for creating a balanced picture of the US-Soviet clandestine encounter in Latvia, in the 1950s. Especially highlighted is the implementation on the Latvian soil of the Soviet theory of strategic counterintelligence and deception operations based upon double agents.
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“Internationalism Against Nazism: The Resistance of Foreign Prisoners of War and Forced Laborers in the Third Reich”
In: Edelstein M. (ed.), Unbroken: The Resistance Within the Nazi Camps (Moscow: Aleksandr Pechersky Fund, to be published in 2020).
This article presents a unique picture of the Nazi-established vast organism of POW and forced labour camps as a resistance pot that had grown on German soil, in 1942-45. The resisting network’s evolvement, the typology of the resisters’ groups and their strong inclination for internationalism will be scrutinized, as well as the resistance practical forms and impacts.
Forest Spies
The Intelligence Activity of the Soviet Partisans 1941-1945
(In Hebrew)
This is a major, unprecedented study of the Soviet partisan movements' intelligence activity in 1941-1945, and its impact on the outcome of the war between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. It contributes significantly to the understanding of the Soviet intelligence culture and practice during WWII, as well as to the study of the Holocaust, which is provided with clear well-documented evidence of the Soviet leadership's knowledge about the extermination of the local Jews by the Nazis and their supporters.
My Archival Trips in Pictures
My Exciting Archival Findings
My Historical Photo Gallery
Interesting Photos Made By Me During My Work as a Journalist in the 1990s
Historical Photos of My Family
My Collection of Historical Rarities
My Collection of Old Books & Newspapers
Fighters Across Frontiers.
Transnational Resistance in Europe, 1936-1948
(Manchester UP, November 2020)
This landmark book, the product of years of research by a team of two dozen historians, reveals that resistance to occupation by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy during WWII was startlingly international.
Proud to be a contributor to almost every chapter in this book and a leading writer of two chapters.
Unknown Conflicts of the Second World War: Forgotten Fronts
Chapter 7: Between the Nazi Hammer and the Soviet Anvil: The Untold Story of the Red Guerrillas in the Baltic Region, 1941-1945
Yaacov Falkov, The Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya & Tel Aviv University
​
Unknown Conflicts of the Second World War: Forgotten Fronts is a collection of chapters dealing with various overlooked aspects of the Second World War. The aim is to give greater depth and context to the war by introducing new stories about regions of the world and elements of the war rarely considered.
These chapters represent new discussions on previously undeveloped narratives that help to expand our understanding of the interconnectedness of the war. It also provides an expanded view of the war as a mosaic of overlapping conflicts rather than a two-sided affair between massive alliance structures. The Second World War saw revolutions, civil wars, social upheaval, subversion, and major geopolitical policy shifts that do not fit neatly into the Allied vs. Axis 1939–1945 paradigm. This aim is to connect the unseen dots from around the globe that influenced the big turning points we think we know well but have really only a superficial understanding of and in so doing shed new light on the scope and influence of the war.
Encyclopédie de la Seconde Guerre mondiale
eds. J.F. Muracciole and G. Piketty (2015)
“Partisans Sovétiques”, pp. 938-43
“Partisans, guerre de”, pp. 943-50
Les auteurs s'intéressent d'abord à ceux, hommes et femmes, civils et militaires, célèbres et anonymes, qui ont été les acteurs ou les victimes de cette guerre totale. Ils analysent leurs réactions et leur comportement, leurs espoirs, leurs peurs, leurs désillusions, leur courage, parfois leur héroïsme. Et les traumatismes de tous ordres qu'ils ont subis dans un monde où l'horreur et la barbarie ont atteint des degrés inégalés. Une large place est également faite aux dirigeants politiques et chefs militaires qui ont pensé, planifié et conduit ce conflit, comme aux innombrables protagonistes qui ont agi dans l'ombre au sein des services secrets ou des forces armées. Les principaux théâtres d'opérations, des conquêtes du IIIe Reich à la bataille de l'Atlantique, des combats sur les fronts de l'Est ou du Pacifique aux bombardements nucléaires d'août 1945, sont étudiés dans leurs particularités et leur interdépendance.
L'ouvrage apporte aussi des éclairages précis et passionnants sur les aspects idéologiques, diplomatiques, stratégiques, économiques, sociaux et culturels d'une conflagration qui a bouleversé les structures et les consciences, les rapports entre les nations ainsi que l'identité de chacune d'entre elles. Il permet ainsi de vivre cette guerre au plus près de sa vérité immédiate, de mieux en comprendre les étapes et les enjeux, comme d'en éprouver toute la complexité.
My Hometown Riga, the Capital of Latvia
Different Old Photos Made by me in the 1990s & the 2000s
