The German army’s training, discipline and Blitzkrieg tactics – directed by the supremely confident Führer – swept away Polish resistance in 1939. It took the shell-shocked Allies another three years to catch up, writes Andrew Roberts.
Richard Overy examines recent analyses of how Europe became embroiled in major conflict just two decades after the trauma of the Great War and we look at events and broadcasts commemorating September 1939.
Richard Cavendish records how Germany sank its own navy in the aftermath of the First World War, on 21 June 1919.
A subject and servant of Europe’s most cosmopolitan empire, the composer Joseph Haydn played an important role in the emergence of German cultural nationalism during the 18th and 19th centuries, writes Tim Blanning.
Robert Pearce recommends a first-hand account of the Third Reich.
Mark Bryant on how French cartoonists of the 1870s responded to national humiliation at the hands of a beligerent Prussia.
A power struggle in postwar Germany erupted on January 5th, 1919.
A spate of recent films suggest that the scars of Germany’s history show little sign of healing. Markus Bauer reports.
Roger Moorhouse takes issue with the secular sainthood bestowed on Claus von Stauffenberg.
Patricia Cleveland-Peck visits Tempelhof which is about to close for ever as an airport.
