Second World War

Paul Dukes assesses the roles of the major statesmen from Britain, the USA and the USSR during the Second World War and the onset of the Cold War.

Donald Zec has written the life of his brother, the wartime political cartoonist Philip Zec, to remind the world of his rich collection of cartoons that caught the mood of the British people at war. The following is an extract from the book.

As the rest of Britain gears up for the sixtieth anniversary of VE Day on May 8th, Peter Tabb describes the last moments of the German Occupation of the Channel Islands, where the end of the War came twenty-four hours later.

John Erickson assesses the massive Soviet assault into Germany in the final year of the war and the price of liberation.

David Nicholas suggests that America’s involvement in northern Europe was unwittingly shaped by a British War Office official, against the wishes of the President.

Richard Evans concludes his two-part account of the Coming of the Third Reich by examining how Hitler’s position, and the state of Germany, was transformed in 1933.

Between February 13th and 15th, 1945, British and American bombers dropped nearly 4,000 tonnes of bombs on the refugee-crammed city of Dresden. David Spark relates how an officer at the British Air Ministry tried to get the raids called off.

James Barker on ‘Bomber’ Harris, the RAF’s wartime bombing campaign of Germany, and propaganda.

Judy Urquhart recalls a forgotten use of Colditz Castle after the end of the Second World War – as a prison for German aristocrats.

Yehuda Koren tells one family’s remarkable story of surviving Auschwitz.