Berlin, 1934. Homes once filled with laughter stand empty as the Nazi party’s grip on the city tightens. When Anna Tiegel’s beautiful best friend catches Reich Minister Goebbels’s special attention, an impulsive act to save her brings Anna under his unforgiving scrutiny. First, she loses her job, then slowly, mercilessly, she finds her life stripped […]
The Minister for Illusion: Goebbels and the German film industry
The German film industry was controlled by Joseph Goebbels from 1933 until his death in 1945. As Catherine Hokin found while researching her new novel, The Lost Mother, this extended further than dictating only the content of films. Joseph Goebbels had an eye for the importance of film, even before he was made Reich Minister […]
A Prince and a Spy by Rory Clements
Sweden, 1942. Two old friends meet. They are cousins. One is Prince George, Duke of Kent, brother of the King of England. The other is Prince Philipp von Hesse, a committed Nazi and close friend of Adolf Hitler. Days later, the Prince George is killed in a plane crash in the north of Scotland. The […]
Secrets of the Frontline Nurses by Holly Green
As the First World War rages on, Leonora has been separated from best friend Victoria as they both do their bit for the war effort by volunteering for the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. Despite the hardships of war, Leonora is delighted to be reunited with her sweetheart Colonel Malkovic. But her happiness is short-lived when […]
Liberation by Imogen Kealey
Nancy Wake was an Australian girl who, aged, 16 ran away from her abusive mother to the other side of the world. Nancy Wake was a wife who, when her husband was snatched by the Gestapo, fought to be trained by SOE and returned to France to take her revenge. Nancy Wake was a soldier […]
Review: A Prince and a Spy by Rory Clements
Author Carolyn Kirby reviews A Prince and A Spy by Rory Clements, the fifth novel in his Tom Wilde series of thrillers set before and during the Second World War. When it comes to historical accuracy, Kate Atkinson says of her novel Transcription (2018) that the story was created through “…a wrenching apart of history […]
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 […]