Dwight D. Eisenhower, the five-star general who commanded Allied forces in Europe and later served two terms as president, used his final hours in the Oval Office to deliver a warning to the nation and to the man about to replace him — a warning that would be tested in Cuba, in Berlin, and across … Read more
Prince Philip stood beside the British throne for 73 years. To the public, he was a decorated war hero, a man of duty, and the Queen's loyal husband. Before Buckingham Palace turned him into the perfect sidekick, he was a displaced prince, abandoned by nearly every member of his family before the age of 10, … Read more
On November 22, 1963, Harry Truman sat in his private library in Independence, Missouri, reading the Kansas City Star when his phone rang at 1:45 p.m. The caller was a Secret Service agent. President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. Truman gripped the receiver until his knuckles turned white. He asked one question: Is he … Read more
Luxemburg, 19. Dezember 1944. Während die alliierten Befehlshaber im Hauptquartier von Versailles fassungslos auf die Lagekarten starren und ganze amerikanische Divisionen im Ardennerwald eingekesselt werden, steht ein Mann lächelnd vor der Wandkarte und sagt den Satz, der in die Militärgeschichte eingehen wird: „Ich kann am 22. Dezember mit drei Divisionen angreifen. “ Es ist der … Read more
LOS ANGELES — In a smoke-filled suite at the Biltmore Hotel, Lyndon Baines Johnson stared at the man who had just defeated him and heard an offer that would plunge the Democratic Party into eighteen hours of chaos, rage, and backroom betrayal that nearly shattered the ticket and changed American history forever. It was the … Read more
Margarete Himmler is remembered less for her own actions than for her place beside one of the most feared men in Nazi Germany. As the wife of Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, she shared his hatred of Jews and never questioned the morality of his work. Yet behind the scenes she was mocked by … Read more
In the freezing fog of a February morning in 1945, a young U.S. Army captain stood in a shallow observation trench on a wind-scoured hill in Germany's Saarland region. Captain Marcus Vance, 28 years old, held a scratched brass trench periscope close to his wool jacket to keep the lens from fogging. Through the narrow … Read more
Edith Frank, the mother of Anne Frank, was born on January 16, 1900, in Aachen, then part of the German Empire. Her parents, Abraham and Rosa Hollander, were wealthy Jews who traded in industrial equipment. Edith was the youngest of four children. She was 14 when her sister Betina died, and she had two brothers, … Read more
Es war der kälteste Winter, den Europa seit vierzig Jahren erlebt hatte, und in den frühen Morgenstunden des 22. Dezember 1944 vollbrachte die Dritte US-Armee unter General George S. Patton Jr. das, was Militärhistoriker bis heute als unmöglich bezeichnen – ein 90-Grad-Schwenk mitten im Kampf, mitten im Eis, mitten in einem Krieg, den viele schon … Read more
Es war der kälteste Winter, den Europa seit vierzig Jahren erlebt hatte, und in den frühen Morgenstunden des 22. Dezember 1944 vollbrachte die Dritte US-Armee unter General George S. Patton Jr. das, was Militärhistoriker bis heute als unmöglich bezeichnen – ein 90-Grad-Schwenk mitten im Kampf, mitten im Eis, mitten in einem Krieg, den viele schon … Read more