N1104 In August 1974, the first Telluride Film Festival opened in a Colorado mining town. Three figures were honored at the inaugural ceremony. One was Francis Ford Coppola. The second was the silent film star Gloria Swanson. The third was Leni Riefenstahl, who had filmed the Nuremberg rallies for Adolf Hitler. The audience applauded. Riefenstahl was … Read more
J’étais dans ma cuisine, en train de couper des fraises pour ma fille de cinq ans, quand mon téléphone s’est allumé. Mon père, Philippe Duval, fêtait ses cinquante-trois ans ce soir-là. Tout le monde avait déjà vu la publication. Lui, souriant au milieu de son dîner d’anniversaire, entouré de mon frère Lucas, de mes sœurs, … Read more
Seven years after Hitler died in Berlin, demolition teams packed the ruins of his mountain home with explosives. The Berghof, where he had spent roughly a quarter of his time in power, hosted prime ministers and directed a war, was blown apart, cleared, and reforested so nothing recognizable would remain. But higher up the same … Read more
J’étais à peine entré dans la galerie que je les ai vus. Non, je n’aurais pas dû venir. Mais j’avais promis à ma mère, une fois de plus, que je ferais un effort. Alors j’y étais, debout comme un imbécile au milieu de la foule élégante, ma veste de costume froissée par le trajet en … Read more
On May 1, 1945, Joseph and Magda Goebbels died in Hitler's bunker beneath Berlin. Their six children died with them, the youngest just 4 years old. But one member of the family survived: Harald Quandt, Magda's son from her first marriage, who was being held as a prisoner of war in North Africa. He would … Read more
J’ai signé les documents à 23 h 55, dans la voiture garée à deux pâtés de la maison. Le moteur tournait au ralenti, le chauffage soufflait une chaleur tiède, et mon téléphone était posé sur le vide-poche, la batterie presque pleine. J’ai relu chaque page à la lumière de l’écran, puis j’ai apposé ma signature … Read more
In June 1940, the roads of France were clogged with refugees as families pushed handcarts loaded with bedding and whatever else they could carry from their homes. In barely six weeks, the French army—considered until recently the strongest in Europe—had collapsed. Paris was occupied by Nazi Germany, and the elderly Marshal Pétain, the former hero … Read more
Bernardus Andreas Dries Riphagen was born on September 7, 1909, in Amsterdam, the eighth child in a troubled family. His mother died when he was six years old, and his father, an alcoholic, remarried but paid little attention to the children. That difficult childhood left a lasting mark on him. At the age of 14, … Read more
On June 22, 1941, German forces crossed the Soviet border without a declaration of war, attacking along a front stretching from the Baltic to the Carpathians. Entire armies were destroyed within weeks, and millions of Soviet soldiers were taken prisoner. For most of those prisoners, captivity meant a slow death. Men were held in open … Read more
On a drab London night in June 1952, a 37-year-old woman crossed the lobby of a cheap hotel and walked toward the last moments of her life. Within minutes she was dead, stabbed in a brutal attack that was no ordinary murder. The victim was Christine Granville, widely regarded as Britain's finest female spy. For … Read more