Germany

Greyhound<\/em>" data-variant="standard" data-subscription-experience="default" data-component="card" >

Welcome home: the cruiser 'Exeter' arrives back at Plymouth, c15 February 1940, after taking part in the battle of the River Plate. The action resulted in the scuttling of the German pocket battleship 'Admiral Graf Spee', which had sent several British merchant ships to the bottom of the Atlantic. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The Battle of the Atlantic: the “desperate” WW2 campaign featured in Tom Hanks film Greyhound

Members of 617 squadron, known as the Dambusters

Second World War

How successful was the Dambusters raid?

Premium

The German chief of staff General Alfred Jodl signs an unconditional surrender to the Allies in Reims, France, 7 May 1945 (Photo by Getty Images)

Britain at War . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Postcards from the past competition

Postcards from the past: Aged between 6–13? Enter our exciting lockdown competition

Expelled Germans leaving Poland's western territories

“The war without an end”: what happened in Europe after VE Day?

The Warsaw Ghetto, Poland, where hundreds of thousands of Jews were forced to live before they were sent to concentration camps as part of Adolf Hitler’s ‘final solution’. (Bettmann/Getty Images)

The Jews who fought back: the story of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Prisoners at Bergen-Belsen

Second World War

A brief history of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where Anne Frank died

Children in Auschwitz

Second World War

The Windermere Children: the remarkable stories of 300 child survivors of the Holocaust

An oil portrait of Charlemagne (c747–814), King of the Franks, by 15th/16th-century artist Albrecht Durer. (Photo by Archive Photos/Getty Images)

The legacy of Charlemagne: how the king of the Franks continues to cast a shadow over Europe

Steve McQueen stars in the 1963 film that turned the 'Great Escape' into a symbol of Allied pluck and ingenuity. (Image by Alamy)

The not-so Great Escape

Premium

Jesus appears before Pontius Pilate in a crowd scene from Oberammergau's 2010 Passion Play. The Bavarian town stages the mammoth production once every ten years, with a cast made up entirely of local residents. (Photo by Brigitte Maria Mayer Passionsspiele Oberammergau 2020)

Travel to: Oberammergau, Germany . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Premium

Illustration of Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19). (Photo by Alamy)

Coronavirus: what might we learn from pandemics in the past? . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Premium

Illustration of Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19). (Photo by Alamy)

Coronavirus: a historical perspective . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A woman is carried away on a stretcher following a German bombing raid on London, c1940. (Photo by Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The dangers of the Blitz spirit

German women carrying children believed to be part of the Lebensborn programme

Second World War

The woman who gave birth for Hitler