Prince Philip was born a prince of Greece in 1921, but the title meant far less than it suggested. His family was forced into exile when he was 18 months old. His father was court-martialed, and his mother, Princess Alice, suffered a severe breakdown and was eventually institutionalized. His four sisters moved to Germany, where … Read more
On July 16, 1984, in a room inside the headquarters of the Italian police in Rome, a 56-year-old man sat across a table from a magistrate from Palermo. The shutters were half closed against the afternoon heat. The man was tanned, well dressed, and carefully groomed, with the manner of someone who had spent his … Read more
Die Geschichte einer verbotenen Liebe zwischen einem SS-Wachmann und einer jüdischen Gefangenen im Vernichtungslager Auschwitz-Birkenau erschüttert noch Jahrzehnte später die historische Forschung und wirft ein grelles Licht auf die Abgründe der nationalsozialistischen Rassenideologie. Franz Wunsch, geboren am 21. März 1922 in Drasenhofen in Österreich, war ein überzeugter Nationalsozialist, der 1940, zwei Jahre nach dem Anschluss … Read more
John "Peanuts" Manfredonia came from a family that produced five World War II heroes. He was the one who went a different way. Born Giovanni Eugene Manfredonia on January 31, 1915, in Mount Vernon, New York, he was the son of Eugene and Caroline Manfredonia, both immigrants from Italy. The family included five other sons: … Read more
On June 3, 1950, at 6:03 a.m., the telephone rang in Bumpy Johnson's Harlem home. He answered on the second ring, his voice hoarse from sleep. A doctor from Harlem Hospital was on the line. Bumpy's mother, Will Helmina Johnson, had suffered a severe heart attack. She was stable but critical. He needed to come … Read more
In January 1936, at Sandringham, the king was dead and his widow took her weeping eldest son's hand and kissed it. The world saw a devoted royal family. Queen Mary had not embraced her son. She performed homage. Bowing and kissing the sovereign's hand is what a subject does. She did it to a 41-year-old … Read more
At Sandringham in January 1936, the king was dead, and his widow took her weeping eldest son's hand and kissed it. The Queen of England was paying homage to her own child. To the world, it looked like a devoted royal family in mourning. It was something else. Bowing and kissing the sovereign's hand is … Read more
Im November 1943 lag dichter Nebel über dem gefrorenen Boden etwa 18 Kilometer östlich von Smolensk. Der Obergefreite Klaus Hartmann presste seine Wange gegen den Schaft seines Karabiner 98 K und fixierte mit dem rechten Auge das Zielfernrohr. In seiner linken Hand hielt er etwas, das jeden Taktiklehrer zur Verzweiflung gebracht hätte: eine leere Konservendose, … Read more
The hangman’s rope had barely been cut from the gallows at Nuremberg Prison when the machinery of Allied justice moved to erase Ernst Kaltenbrunner from the earth itself. His body was cremated at Munich’s Ostfriedhof, his ashes scattered into a tributary of the Isar River. No grave. No headstone. No pilgrimage site for future admirers. … Read more
A strange contradiction sits at the heart of the Prose Edda, the 13th-century Icelandic text that remains the most complete source for modern understanding of Norse mythology. In one passage, the mighty thunder god Thor is described as a mortal king from Troy, an ancestor of Odin. Elsewhere in the same work, Thor is identified … Read more