An account of Nazi preoccupation with Britain as a role model, even during the war.

During the Second World War, Britain's top secret Special Operations Executive plotted to assassinate Hitler. A small department of SOE known as Section X had the tantalisingly complex task of investigating how, when and where their plan could be executed. The section also plotted the killing of Goebbels, Himmler and other selected members of Hitler's inner circle. Only Section X and a handful of other SOE staff had any knowledge of these projects, codenamed Operation Foxley and Operation Little Foxleys. As history has shown, these schemes turned out to be pipe dreams. Even so, Section X, renamed the German Directorate in 1944, made a huge contribution to the Allied war effort through their organised sabotage and clandestine distribution of black propaganda. Denis Rigden describes Section X's efforts to discover as much as possible about the intended assassination targets, and questions whether a successful Operation Foxley would have helped or hindered the Allied cause. Based on top secret documents and private sources and illustrated with archive photographs, 'Kill the Fuhrer' is an intriguing insight into the shadowy world of Britain's wartime secret services.

The groundbreaking expose of an international conspiracy to protect Nazi war criminals—now with new material and an introduction by Phillip Sands. As Russian forces closed in on Berlin, and Hitler’s premiership drew to a close, many Nazi officials fled Germany. In this startling, meticulously researched account, acclaimed journalist Uki Goni unravels the complex international network that led them to Argentina. Goni demonstrates how numerous war criminals—including Adolf Eichmann, Joseph Mengele, Erich Priebke, and many others—made their escape with the support of the Vatican and President Juan Peron, as well as significant assistance from Scandinavia, Switzerland, and Italy. Both riveting and rigorous, this remarkable investigation sheds light on both a disquieting episode in Europe's history, and the ties between Argentinian Catholic Nationalism and Fascist movements in Europe.

The origins of the Second World War remain clouded in Churchillian mythology. Sixty years on, Peter Neville's controversial book provides an essential reassessment of the appeasement myths by examining a central yet understudied figure. Sir Nevile Henderson has been vilified as 'our Nazi Ambassador in Berlin' by historians and popular memory alike. He has remained in disgrace despite the widespread historical rethinking of appeasement in recent years. Yet there has never before been a book-length study of Henderson despite his central role as Britain's Ambassador. Peter Neville's important reassessment draws upon primary documents to overturn orthodox interpretations. While Henderson's analysis of the Nazi regime was seriously flawed, history has vastly overstated his influence. In presenting the first full and close analysis of what Henderson himself called 'the failure of a mission', the author has made a pathbreaking contribution to the history of appeasement.

A groundbreaking new account of the Battle of Britain from acclaimed Cambridge historian James Holland The Battle of Britain paints a stirring picture of an extraordinary summer when the fate of the world hung by a thread. Historian James Holland has now written the definitive account of those months based on extensive new research from around the world including thousands of new interviews with people on both sides of the battle. If Britain's defenses collapsed, Hitler would have dominated all of Europe. With France facing defeat and British forces pressed back to the Channel, there were few who believed Britain could survive; but, thanks to a sophisticated defensive system and the combined efforts of the Royal Air Force, the Royal Navy and the defiance of a new Prime Minister, Britain refused to give in. From clashes between coastal convoys and Schnellboote in the Channel to astonishing last stands in Flanders, slaughter by U-boats in an icy Atlantic and dramatic aerial battles over England, The Battle of Britain tells this epic World War II story in a fresh and compelling voice.

Appeasement failed in all its goals. The kindest thing that can be said of it is that postponed World War II by one year. Its real effect was to convince Hitler and Mussolini that Britain was weak and afraid of confrontation, encouraging them to ever-greater acts of aggression.Chamberlain and Wilson blindly pursued bilateral friendship between Britain and the dictators and ferociously resisted alternative policies such as working with France, the Soviet Union, or the U.S. to face down the dictators. They resisted all-out rearmament which would have put the economy on a war footing. These were all the policies advocated by Winston Churchill, the most dangerous opponent of appeasement.Neither Chamberlain nor Wilson had any experience of day-to-day practical diplomacy. Both thought that the dictators would apply the same standards of rationality and clarity to the policies of Italy and Germany that applied in Britain. They could not grasp that Fascist demagogues operated in an entirely different way to democratic politicians. The catastrophe of the Chamberlain/Wilson appeasement policy offers a vital lesson in how blind conviction in one policy as the only alternative can be fatally damaging.

After the Anschluss (annexation) in 1938, the Nazis forced Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg to resign and kept him imprisoned for seven years, until his rescue by the Allies in 1945. Schuschnigg’s privileged position within the concentration camp system allowed him to keep a diary and to write letters which were smuggled out to family members. Drawing on these records, Prison Elite paints a picture of a little-known aspect of concentration camp history: the life of a VIP prisoner. Schuschnigg, who was a devout Catholic, presents his memoirs as a "confession," expecting absolution for any political missteps and, more specifically, for his dictatorial regime in the 1930s. As Erika Rummel reveals in fascinating detail, his autobiographical writings are frequently unreliable. Prison Elite describes the strategies Schuschnigg used to survive his captivity emotionally and intellectually. Religion, memory of better days, friendship, books and music, and maintaining a sense of humour allowed him to cope. A comparison with the memoirs of fellow captives reveals these tactics to be universal. Studying Schuschnigg’s writing in the context of contemporary prison memoirs, Prison Elite provides unique insight into the life of a VIP prisoner.

SMERSH is the award-winning account of the top-secret counterintelligence organisation that dealt with Stalin's enemies from within the shadowy recesses of Soviet government. As James Bond's nemesis in Ian Fleming's novels, SMERSH and its operatives were depicted in exotic duels with 007, rather than fostering the bleak oppression and terror they actually spread in the name of their dictator. Stalin drew a veil of secrecy over SMERSH's operations in 1946, but that did not stop him using it to terrify Red Army dissenters in Leningrad and Moscow, or to abduct and execute suspected spooks - often without cause - across mainland Europe. Formed to mop up Nazi spy rings at the end of the Second World War, SMERSH gained its name from a combination of the Russian words for 'Death to Spies'. Successive Communist governments suppressed traces of Stalin's political hit squad; now Vadim Birstein lays bare the surgical brutality with which it exerted its influence as part of the paranoid regime, both within the Soviet Union and in the wider world. SMERSH was the most mysterious and secret of organisations - this definitive and magisterial history finally reveals truths that lay buried for nearly fifty years.

This book examines the evolution of the Foreign Office in the 20th century and the way in which it has responded to Britain's changing role in international affairs. The last century was one of unprecedented change in the way foreign policy and diplomacy were conducted. The work of 'The Office' expanded enormously in the 20th century, and oversaw the transition from Empire to Commonwealth, with the merger of the Foreign and Colonial Offices taking place in the 1960s. The book focuses on the challenges posed by waging world war and the process of peacemaking, as well as the diplomatic gridlock of the Cold War. Contributions also discusses ways in which the Foreign and Commonwealth Office continues to modernise to meet the challenges of diplomacy in the 21st century. This book was previously published as a special issue of the journal Contemporary British History.