Second World War

The Wilhelm Gustloff, once an elegant cruise-liner of Hitler’s Reich, was torpedoed by a Soviet submarine on the night of 30 January 1945.

Benn Steil argues that John Maynard Keynes had an astute grasp of Britain’s debt situation in 1944 and how it might recover from ‘financial Dunkirk’. Yet his arrogance and ineptitude in negotiating with the Americans at Bretton Woods cost Britain dear and has had repercussions to this day.

The Dambusters Raid is one of the best known operations of the Second World War. But, as James Holland explains, the development of the ‘bouncing bomb’ took place against a background of bitter rivalry between the armed services.

The indiscriminate use of ‘Nazi’ to describe anything to do with German institutions and policies during Hitler’s dictatorship creates a false historical understanding, says Richard Overy.

Britain’s loss of Singapore in February 1942 was a terrible blow. But Japan failed to make the most of its prize, says Malcolm Murfett.

Roger Hudson explains a moment of panic on the streets of the newly liberated French capital.

In 1943 a train was stopped by resisters as it travelled from Flanders to Auschwitz. Althea Williams tells the story of a survivor.

Fronted by Magda Goebbels, the Deutsches Modeamt was an attempt by the Nazis to put the fascist into German fashion.

Despite a lack of style or personality, W.N. Medlicott argues, Neville Chamberlain overcame his unique capacity for being misunderstood to achieve a record of consistency.

Peter Mandler explains how the anthropologist Margaret Mead, author of best-selling studies of ‘primitive’ peoples, became a major influence on US military thinking during the Second World War.