Hitler
The mythic mishmash of Wagner’s Ring
Its towering themes of gods, giants, dragons and magic were not purely Germanic in origin, whatever fever-dream they later conjured in Hitler’s brain
The ambassador’s daughter bent on betrayal
When the young Martha Dodd arrived at the American embassy in Berlin in 1933 she cared nothing about politics. By the time she left four years later, she was a committed Soviet spy
Were the Arctic convoy sacrifices worth it?
Stalin privately admitted that his army could never have triumphed without western aid, and the convoys also indirectly helped the war in the Atlantic – but the loss of life was horrendous
The journalist’s journalist: the irrepressible Claud Cockburn
After a distinguished spell on the Times, Cockburn launched The Week in 1933, whose scoops on Nazi Germany became essential reading for politicians, diplomats and journalists alike
What do we mean when we talk about freedom?
When the Yale historian and bestselling author Timothy Snyder was 14, his parents took him to Costa Rica, a country…
The futility of ever hoping to give peace a chance
After 400 generations of martial conflict on Earth, mankind now faces the prospect of wars in space, as China and America vie for mastery of the heavens
When Stalin was the lesser of two evils
Churchill detested Stalin, but Britain and the US needed his help against an even worse enemy. Giles Milton reveals the true nature of the Big Three’s dysfunctional relationship
The circus provides perfect cover for espionage
As he flew his plane between circus acts across Germany in the 1930s, Cyril Bertram Mills gained vital aerial intelligence about the Nazis’ rearmament programme
Enemy of the Disaster: Selected Political Writings of Renaud Camus, reviewed
The French writer does not accept that all incomers to his country can be truly ‘French’, and considers the dramatic change of population an unprecedented disaster
Set in a silver sea: the glory of Britain’s islands
Alice Albinia reminds us that Orkney was a trading station long before London, Iona the epicentre of Celtic Christianity and Shetland a haven for liberal Udal law
Out of the shadows
Unlike his attention-seeking brother David Stirling, Bill was a careful planner, responsible for many successful intelligence-gathering operations behind enemy lines
Looking on the bright side
The Rochdale lass who sang her way from music hall to the silver screen encouraged a spirit of resilience and community in the interwar years, says Simon Heffer
A doomed democracy
Despite its democratic ideals and artistic creativity, 1920s Germany lacked both the flexibility and social cohesion necessary for functional politics, says Frank McDonough
What, if anything, have dictators over the centuries had in common?
Simon Kuper finds little to connect the strongmen of the past and present apart from their contempt for their own supporters
The Anne Frank story continues
Hannah Pick-Goslar, a survivor of the Holocaust and Anne’s friend in Amsterdam, movingly describes their snatched conversations in Belsen before Anne disappeared forever
Was Mussolini’s wilful daughter his éminence grise?
In 1930, when she was 19 years old, Edda Mussolini married Galeazzo Ciano. His father was a loyal minister in…
The Osnabrück witch trials echo down the centuries
Absent mothers resonate in the latest offerings from two heavyweights of French literature. Getting Lost is the diary kept by…
The roots of 20th-century German aggression
It is the contention of Peter Wilson, professor of the history of war at Oxford University and the author of…
The nondescript house that determined the outcome of the second world war
Sometimes the struggle for a single small strongpoint can tip the whole balance of a greater battle. One thinks of…
Bitter harvest – how Ukraine’s wheat has always been coveted
Publishers love books with ambitious subtitles such as ‘How Bubblegum Made the Modern World’, and this one’s, about American wheat…
Are cancel-culture activists aware of their sinister bedfellows?
Is there a woke case to be made for freedom of expression? Jacob Mchangama certainly seems to think so. This…
The joy of French car boot sales
Every Saturday morning Michael rises at four and drives down to the Côte d’Azur to the Magic World car boot…
The secret life of Thomas Mann: The Magician, by Colm Tóibín, reviewed
In a letter to Stephen Spender, W.H. Auden, who had married Thomas Mann’s daughter Erika sight unseen in order to…
Louis-Ferdinand Céline was lucky to escape retribution in 1945
They rather like bad boys, the French. Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894-1961) is one, in a tradition that stretches from François Villon…
Chips Channon’s judgment was abysmal, but the diaries are a great work of literature
It is often said that the best political diaries are written by those who dwell in the foothills of power.…
