When Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933, the Nazi Party set out to lead what it called the German master race to victory in a racial struggle against those it deemed inferior, especially the Jews. The German medical profession played a central role in shaping and implementing Nazi policies, and … Read more
In July 1944, a German corporal woke up in a field of tents in Normandy, a few miles behind the fighting lines, just after dawn. He did not know where he was. His last clear memory was a hedgerow, a flash, and the feeling of being thrown sideways into a ditch. After that, memory dissolved … Read more
On the evening of March 3, 1953, outside the Renaissance Casino on Seventh Avenue near 138th Street, Julian Rowe arrived on foot for a charity benefit raising funds for a children’s hospital wing in Harlem. He was a large, quiet man in his mid-forties, known throughout the neighborhood as someone who, in practical terms, ran … Read more
On June 3, 1944, Salzburg hosted a wedding unlike any other in the fifth year of the Second World War. Across Europe, millions had already perished, and the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe was only days away. Adolf Hitler presided over the ceremony at Mirabell Palace before moving the celebration to the Eagle's Nest high … Read more
RANCE, France — The four words moved through the corridors of Supreme Headquarters in a whisper, the kind men use when they are not certain they are permitted to say a thing aloud. Patton crossed last night. Not the British. Not the greatest river assault ever assembled. Three thousand guns waiting in the north with … Read more
On March 15, 1962, Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson walked alone into Romano’s restaurant in Little Italy, where Vincent Torino and eight armed men were waiting to kill him. Torino and his crew burst into laughter the moment Johnson stepped through the door, mocking him as a fool who had walked into his own execution. Ninety seconds … Read more
High in the Bavarian Alps, Adolf Hitler's mountain retreat at Obersalzberg became the informal center of power in Nazi Germany. Party leaders, ministers, generals, and foreign visitors passed through its doors. Among the men with constant access to Hitler was Martin Bormann, the ambitious party official who steadily became one of the most powerful figures … Read more
On the morning of September 19, 1931, the housekeeper at Adolf Hitler’s Munich apartment noticed that his 23-year-old half-niece, Geli Raubal, had not come down for breakfast. When the door to her room was forced open, she was found face down on the floor, dead from a gunshot wound to the chest. A pistol belonging … Read more
Just after midnight on August 31, 1997, a black Mercedes sped into Paris's Pont de l'Alma tunnel and never came out the other side. Within seconds, Princess Diana, who hours earlier had been laughing at a dinner table, was trapped in a catastrophic wreck. She was only 36. Nobody, not the security team, not the … Read more
The Battle of Stalingrad ended on February 2, 1943, when the German Sixth Army capitulated after five months of fierce fighting and heavy casualties. Exhausted of ammunition and food, it became the first of Hitler's field armies to surrender during World War II. The battle proved a decisive psychological turning point, ending a string of … Read more