The German football team returned from its victorious World Cup campaign in Brazil to a rapturous welcome. Hundreds of thousands of Germans gathered in Berlin to celebrate the first World Cup win for a…
The battle for the Pacific island of Saipan during World War II is one of those well-remembered battles between Japan and America, one made worse by the mass suicide of local Japanese civilians who jumped…
Henry Irving, School of Advanced Study, University of London
“Keep Calm and Carry On” is now one of the most recognisable slogans in British history. Its resilient message has become extraordinarily commonplace, with the phrase used to sell everything from mugs…
On June 6 1944, more than 150,000 Allied troops landed in Normandy. Their number rose to 1.5m over the next six weeks. With them came millions of tons of equipment, ranging from munitions, vehicles, food…
The 70th anniversary of D-Day also commemorates the beginning of the end for the Third Reich occupation of France. Starting with the Normandy landings of June 6 1944, Allied troops began to turn the tide…
It’s the 70th anniversary of D-Day, and veterans and world leaders are meeting on the beaches of Normandy to commemorate the biggest seaborne invasion in military history. Memorial services are to recognise…
Dame Vera Lynn’s latest album, National Treasure — The Ultimate Collection, has been released in the week of the 70th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. The album, filled with over 40 of her wartime hits…
Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) is easily the most controversial philosopher in the 20th century. To a large extent this is due to his implication in Nazism, which is a scandal to some, a fascinating spectacle…
In its new exhibition, the British Library celebrate the subversive history of the comic. As ever, such a complex heritage can hardly be covered in such a show. But it is a symptom of a more widespread…
News that a feature film of the BBC TV comedy series Dad’s Army is to be made – starring Bill Nighy and Toby Jones – has garnered a mixed response. The Daily Telegraph has questioned whether the film is…
Since the very beginning of the Ukrainian crisis, many Western commentators have drawn comparisons between the present situation and pre-WWII Europe, as well as between Hitler and Putin. This has largely…
Many of the images of pro-Russian demonstrators in Ukraine, from Crimea to Donetsk, have shown them wearing black-and-orange-striped ribbons. The symbolism here is opaque to most Western observers, it…
We study the past to understand the present and to help shape the future. A society without a memory is a dysfunctional society. And much of a society’s memory is encapsulated within its cultural property…
It seems an impossibility: in Nazi-occupied Denmark in the 1940s, one of the hottest jazz orchestras around was the interracial Harlem Kiddies, with two white and three black band members – and a Jewish…
Polish reactions to the German TV series Generation War, which has just screened in Australia, confirm that the history of World War Two remains highly contentious. The resulting public debate tested Polish-German…
A one-off programme on History’s H2 channel and Sky News has broadcast for the first time some film footage I discovered depicting the Holocaust. This may seem unremarkable: in the digital age, smartphones…
We rarely ask ourselves why we should remember the Holocaust. We simply assume that we should. However, if we only go through the motions uttering phrases such as “we remember” and “never again”, remembering…
The anniversary of Armistice Day is chance to reflect on a shameful chapter in the history of journalism. Millions were killed and maimed during World War I, about a million from Britain and its empire…
It would take a hard-hearted person not to have been moved to tears by the images on our television screens of Syria over the last week - of infants struggling to breathe while their parents looked on…
Ten years ago this month, John Howard’s Minister for Veteran Affairs, Danna Vale, launched a searchable internet database known as the World War 2 Nominal Roll. It was intended to be a virtual war memorial…