The German tycoons who got fat on the Nazi killing machine
After his men discovered the charred and bullet-ridden bodies of a thousand slave labourers murdered near the northern German town of Gardelegen in April 1945, US Army…
The hidden Nazi past of the products you love
Original sin On February 20 1933, about two dozen of Nazi Germany’s wealthiest businessmen – among them, Günther Quandt, a textile producer turned arms-and-battery tycoon; Friedrich Flick, a…
How I found out my grandfather was a Nazi
Joining her will be two other speakers, who will pass on memories from very different perspectives. Eitan Neishlos, 42, an Australian tech entrepreneur and philanthropist, will tell…
Dear Richard Madeley: ‘My great grandparents were murdered in the Holocaust – how do I tell my kids?’
Dear Richard, I have two children at primary school. The older one has been doing the Second World War as a topic and it’s all been quite…
Control by Adam Rutherford review: a fizzy history of eugenics – and what science still can’t do
Recently, a committee was established to investigate what nefarious links with empire and colonialism might lurk in the past of Imperial College, London (there was already a…
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…
Furtwängler wasn’t a Nazi – it’s time to give this great conductor his due
Wilhelm Furtwängler was perhaps the greatest classical conductor of the 20th century, but since his prime coincided with Nazi rule, he was also one of the more controversial….
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…
‘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…
How a British Rail employee ended up in the Old Bailey’s only war crime trial
On February 9 1999, Britain’s first and last war crimes trial began at the Old Bailey in London. In the dock – or, more accurately, beside his…
My mother has dementia – but can still remember the Nazi doctor who gave her ‘medicine’ at Auschwitz
A month after leaving Siberia, Alina and Olga reached Tallinn. The city was bedlam. Six months earlier, the Nazis had been bombing it. Now the Germans were…
Munich: The Edge of War: like a bumper episode of The Crown
12A cert, 130 min. Dir: Christian Schwochow It’s been a while since likening a film to a television programme could automatically be considered an insult, and Munich:…
The Nazis looted my family’s art – here’s how we might get it back
The CLAE is looking for several thousands of works at any one time. Some come with extensive documentation of their journeys, while others have little more than…
Cabaret, review: Eddie Redmayne dazzles in the kill-for-a-ticket theatrical triumph of 2021
Where Cumming was brazenly sexual, there’s something abstract and parodic about Redmayne’s nonetheless consummately physical characterisation, as if conjured from a nightmare. He keeps pivoting during that…