Fugitives by Danny Orbach, review: the Nazis who became Cold War spies
There were two ways in which the Allies could make use of a senior Nazi in the years following the end of the Second World War. One…
Resistance by Halik Kochanski review: a superb, myth-busting study of Nazi-occupied Europe
Kochanski is excellent on the “painful visibility” of occupying forces, with German troops taking over not just public buildings, but private dwellings, too. A Czech wrote: “You…
Rise of the Nazis, review: if only BBC Two would show more proper history documentaries like this
What is the point of BBC Two? According to its remit, it exists to provide “knowledge-building programming”. Really, though, it has become a channel on which to…
It may be pure propaganda, but this British war film is one of the greatest ever made
Every British film made between 1939 and about 1950 was, fundamentally, propaganda. Until 1945, they were aimed at keeping up the morale of a public that from day to…
Henry Danton on remembering The Sleeping Beauty: ‘Our ballet made you forget the horror of war’
It’s 75 years ago this week that Henry Danton stepped onto the Royal Opera House stage, performing in the Sadler’s Wells (now Royal) Ballet production of Marius…
Friedrichstrasse 19 by Emma Harding review: a decade-straddling love letter to Berlin
Friedrichstrasse is, of course, a real street, still combining the plush with the rough, the romance of Berlin with its tragedy. Bisected after the war by the…
Anne Frank author: I am 90 per cent certain we have got the right guy
Improved forensic techniques and the use of AI for cross-referencing names and dates have given this team the edge over the police team who conducted an investigation…
Operation Mincemeat, review: punchy musical about an outlandish Allied subterfuge
A buzz louder than a doodlebug surrounds Operation Mincemeat, a new musical about the wartime deception that enabled the Allied invasion of Sicily. That outlandish subterfuge, which…
The Betrayal of Anne Frank, review: a stunning piece of historical detective work
On August 4 1944, SS officer Julius Dettman received information that Jews were hiding in a warehouse complex at Prinsengracht 263 in central Amsterdam. The IV B4…
‘If you’re German, you have a terrible inheritance to face’: the children who survived Auschwitz
The first time Alwin Meyer visited one of the children of Auschwitz, they were reluctant to let him in because he was German. “A Jewish friend had…
The double life of Munich’s ‘good German’ – and would-be Hitler killer – Adam von Trott zu Solz
In 1939, Trott made several trips back to England to lobby British officials and his friends – which included his meeting with the Astors and Chamberlain while…
Was Neville Chamberlain more than the coward who kowtowed to Hitler?
The man von Hartmann hopes to contact is the other main confected figure in Harris’s story, a young Foreign Office diplomat, Hugh Legat (George Mackay), with whom he had…
Dame Vera Lynn: An Extraordinary Life, review: a moving tribute to a national icon
No cultural figure spanned the last 100 years like Dame Vera Lynn. As this moving exhibition in Ditchling (her home since 1944) shows, she was a prominent…
Revealed: The secret teenage British resistance force taught to garrote Nazi soldiers and build Molotov cocktails
Researchers have been unable to ascertain just how many teenagers were selected to join the resistance because the secretive nature of the plans meant there were no…
What Vera Lynn was really like behind closed doors
Above: one of Lynn’s sketchbooks from the 1930s. She was taught by Arthur Segal, a Romanian artist who fled Nazi Germany. His school in north London encouraged…
Last Post: buglers honour war dead at Christmas
Bugler and drummer James Stainthorpe and his bugler colleague Dan Wilding are captured in a stunning photograph playing at the Candles for Heroes Ceremony at Harrogate. A…
The Spectre of War by Jonathan Haslam, review: a book every intelligent person should read
When the movers and shakers of London, Paris or Berlin compared the rather vulgar Führer with Stalin and his works, it was no contest. In 1936, when…
Sybil & Cyril by Jenny Uglow review: the unlikely artistic duo who shook up Britain
The dun-coloured product, made from cork and linseed oil on a canvas backing, was cheap and about as workaday as you could get, which fitted Flight’s ideal…
The world’s first sitcom: why you’re still watching Pinwright’s Progress 75 years later
Unfortunately, Alexandra Palace’s studio B was already very cramped. In a room about the size of a tennis court were two sets, two huge cameras mounted on…
The best new history books to buy for Christmas 2021
Christmas is the time of year when people are most likely to attend divine service, and Going to Church in Medieval England by Nicholas Orme (Yale, £20),…