Y1806

By early May 1945, the Thousand-Year Reich was a smoking, blood-stained ruin. Adolf Hitler was a charred corpse in a Berlin garden. The most flamboyant, corrupt, and powerful man remaining in the Nazi regime, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, was on the move. But Göring was not fleeing like a common criminal. In his own mind, he … Read more

On May 6, 2023, an 83-year-old man in morning dress took his seat inside Westminster Abbey and watched a woman he had once called his wife be crowned queen. He had married her half a century earlier, on a summer morning with the household cavalry lining the aisle. He had lost her slowly to the … Read more

Pat Kirkwood was one of the most famous women on the London stage when, on an autumn night in 1948, she opened her dressing room door and found the husband of the future queen standing in front of her. She was 27 years old, the actress a leading critic had called the eighth wonder of … Read more

On March 29, 1945, at a Wehrmacht prisoner processing facility in Kassel, Germany, a German major waited to speak with an American general. He had been captured 48 hours earlier during the collapse of a castle defensive perimeter. He was not wounded. He was not hungry. He had surrendered his unit of 340 men intact, … Read more

On the morning of April 29, 1945, the sky over Bavaria was the color of dirty iron. The war in Europe was days from its end, and the Third Reich lay in ashes. American units raced across the German countryside, hunting the last pockets of resistance. Among them was the 45th Infantry Division, known as … Read more

In December 1944, General George S. Patton Jr. was everywhere along the front, riding in his Jeep through the frozen mud of Luxembourg and France. His Third Army was grinding forward against the Germans. But one cold morning near Nancy, France, a different kind of confrontation unfolded, one that had nothing to do with the … Read more

In December 1944, General George S. Patton Jr. was everywhere at the front, riding in his Jeep through the frozen mud of Luxembourg and France as the Third Army ground forward. One cold morning near Nancy, France, a scene unfolded that had nothing to do with the Germans. A white first lieutenant stood face to … Read more

On May 8, 1945, the war in Europe was over. In a dusty interrogation room at SHAEF headquarters in Reims, France, Alfred Jodl, chief of the Wehrmacht operations staff and the man who had just signed Germany's unconditional surrender, sat across a table from Allied intelligence officers. The formal proceedings were finished. The cameras were … Read more