As Hitler prepared to invade Poland during the sweltering summer of 1939, men and women from across London’s museums, galleries and archives formulated ingenious plans to send the nation’s highest prized objects to safety. Using stately homes, tube tunnels, slate mines, castles, prisons, stone quarries and even their own homes, a dedicated bunch of unlikely […]
The Forgotten by Mary Chamberlain
London 1958. Twenty-six-year-old Betty Fisher is one of the first to join the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and attend its inaugural meeting, where she meets John Harris. Posted to Berlin towards the end of the war, John has been left traumatised by his experiences in Germany. And, as his initial admiration for Betty shifts into […]
Resistance by Mara Timon
It’s May, 1944. When spy Elisabeth de Mornay, code name Cécile, notices a coded transmission from an agent in the field does not bear his usual signature, she suspects his cover has been blown – something that is happening with increasing frequency. With the situation in occupied France worsening and growing fears that the Resistance […]
The Lifeline by Deborah Swift
1942, Nazi-occupied Norway. Schoolteacher Astrid Dahl has always kept out of trouble. But when she is told to teach the fascist Nazi curriculum, she refuses and starts a teachers’ rebellion, persuading 8,000 teachers to go on strike. The Germans arrest her, and terrified of what punishment her trial might bring, she is forced to go […]
A different kind of WWII resistance
There were many ways to resist the Nazi regime. Deborah Swift tells Historia about a quiet, but very effective, form of resistance which she came across while researching her new book, The Lifeline, set in Norway and Shetland during the Second World War. I’ve always been interested in the French Resistance, but when I was […]
“Put those Christmas lights out!” The Home Front during World War Two
Jean Fullerton’s novels draw on the history of her native East End of London. Her Ration Book series, set during the Second World War, vividly describes Christmas at a time when cupboards were, if not bare, not stocked with treats, either. She tells Historia what wartime Christmases were like. For centuries Christmas has been a […]
Historia interviews: Clare Mulley and Carolyn Kirby
The biographer Clare Mulley has been in the news recently for her success in obtaining an English Heritage blue plaque to commemorate wartime SOE agent Krystyna Skarbek, also known as Christine Granville, who was said to be ‘Churchill’s favourite spy.’ Krystyna was the subject of Clare’s bestselling 2012 biography The Spy Who Loved and Clare […]
German reunification: still dividing opinion 30 years on
To mark the 30th anniversary of the reunification of Germany, author Catherine Hokin looks at what – and why – divisions still remain in the country. Ask most people which singer they associate with the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the top answer you will get is David Hasselhoff. His performance of Looking for […]