Britain’s civilised tolerance of Second World War conscientious objectors should make us all proud
Early in the Second World War, pacifist Roy Ridgway was asked by a policeman what he would do if he were approached by a German parachutist. He…
Hundreds attend funeral of Harry Billinge, the D-Day veteran who would not let the fallen be forgotten
Mr Billinge grew up in Petts Wood in Kent but lived in Cornwall for 70 years after being advised to leave London for a better quality of…
Second World War bomber veterans ‘written out of history’ tell their stories in new film
Wing Commander John Bell, a bomb aimer, described a sky filled with bursting shells and said: “It really only needed a tiny piece of a shell fragment…
Ukraine sheds new light on the great tragedies of the last century
Mighty Russia, superior in numbers, armaments and economic power, has failed not only to defeat but even to make major inroads into Ukraine during seven weeks of…
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 real Bond? How Hollywood overlooked the other Fleming brother
“’One reads Fleming… for the pleasure of meeting an Elizabethan spirit allied to a modern mind,” wrote Vita Sackville-West in 1934, and for the rest of the…
Operation Mincemeat, review: a businesslike account of one of history’s most outrageous military cons
Tricking the Nazis into a troop withdrawal from Sicily – just before the Allies mounted the largest amphibious invasion there in history – needed one corpse, planted…
Operation Mincemeat, review: a businesslike account of one of history’s most outrageous military cons
Tricking the Nazis into a troop withdrawal from Sicily – just before the Allies mounted the largest amphibious invasion there in history – needed one corpse, planted…
A chilling account of life under siege, by the Anne Frank of Leningrad
June 22 At quarter past 12 the entire country heard [foreign minister] Comrade Molotov’s speech. He announced that at four o’clock this morning, without any formal declaration…
The Eagle Has Landed author Henry Patterson – a master of the ‘civilised thriller’
Patterson’s early thrillers, written (under several different names) to supplement his wages as a comprehensive-school teacher and later a university lecturer, had been standard fare. It was…
Traitor King by Andrew Lownie review: Edward VIII was even worse than we thought
The meat of Lownie’s absorbing and easily digestible book, however, is embodied in its title. “Traitor” is a strong word, but it is not melodramatic: in purely…
Operation Mincemeat star Johnny Flynn: ‘I was spotty and quiet at school’
“I loved history at school, but it was always the Romans, the Tudors and World War Two on rotation,” he laughs. “At least that launched me into…
The ‘Nazi porn’ TV train rolls on – and so does its Churchillian interpretation of history
There is then much debate about whether Chamberlain thought he had bought time by refusing to fight over the Sudetenland, or whether he genuinely thought, in his…
‘It was only after my mother’s death that I discovered she was a Resistance hero’
By April 1943, Sabine was being warned that the boss in the office where she worked could betray her. On 28 April 1943, she saw a military…
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…
Channel 4’s Traitor King documentary felt like a nail in the coffin of Edward VIII’s legacy
Andrew Lownie, historian and author, suggested that the Duke supported a German plan to put him back on the throne as head of a puppet state, although…
The Mozart Question brings Morpurgo’s death camp novella to all-engulfing life
Since it opened in 2018, the Barn, Cirencester has become Michael Morpurgo Central, enjoying an unusually close creative relationship with the former Children’s Laureate. With the pandemic-delayed…
Military wives become first all-female group to recreate the Heroes of Telemark mission
A dozen military wives have become the first all-female team to recreate a daring Second World War mission. The women have conquered one of the most inhospitable…
Mussolini’s forgotten fascist utopia – in the Greek islands
The result was Lakki (better known as Portolago by the Italians) one of the best examples of rationalist-fascist architecture outside of Italy. Hopping into Giorgos’ battered car,…
Edward VIII helped Nazis invade France by revealing defence weak spots to known collaborator, historian claims
During the invasion, the Duke and duchess fled to Lisbon, Portugal, where they continued to socialise with German agents and sympathisers. The documentary reveals secret police reports…
We’ll never escape the shadow of the Second World War
The Second World War has always felt like history – or even mythology – to me, even though my own family was immersed in it. Both grandads…
The ‘Greatest Raid’? Operation Chariot was a cruel and stupid waste of life
Amphibious raiding absorbed a lot of the home-based war effort in the dog days of 1942. It was a peculiarly British practice. In all the time that…
Putin has learnt nothing from his beloved Soviet history books
Given the events of the 1930s in Ukraine, it is perhaps not surprising that a number of Ukrainians initially wanted to help the Nazis. In doing so,…
Distant Fathers by Marina Jarre review: from fleeing the Nazis to exile in fascist Italy
Marina Jarre, who died aged 90 in 2016, was an Italian novelist and short-story writer. At least, she made her home in Italy and wrote in Italian:…
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…