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Churchill's ‘finest hour’ helped defeat the Nazis. But was it a double-edged sword?
Winston Churchill’s leadership in 1940 became one of the defining moments of modern British history – but the legacy of that triumph may have shaped Britain’s future as much as the war itself
On 18 June 1940, Nazism was sweeping across continental Europe and Britain seemed on a precipice. France, Britain’s principal ally on the continent, had rapidly collapsed under the force of the German invasion. The British Expeditionary Force had escaped from Dunkirk, but only by abandoning vast quantities of weapons and equipment on the beaches of northern France. Britain now faced the very real possibility of invasion, defeat, or a long war fought in near isolation. In that context, Winston Churchill stood in the House of Commons to deliver one of the most well-known speeches in British history. “If the British empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years,” he declared, “men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’” This crystallised a moment when an increasingly isolated Britain resolved to continue the fight. But as historian Richard Vinen suggests, for all that Churchill’s famous words marked the moment, they also conveyed a deeper ambiguity about Britain’s post-war future. The meaning of ‘finest hour’ “It always seems to me that the most double-edged words Churchill ever uses are on this very iconic date – 18 June 1940,” Vinen explains, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast. On the same day that Churchill sought to rally the British, Charles de Gaulle delivered his own appeal from London, urging the French people to continue resisting after their government had sought an armistice with Germany. Together, these speeches marked the opening of a new phase of the war, in which resistance against occupation became an essential theme. Indeed, Churchill’s phrase “finest hour” was intended to inspire – and it did. It recast the ongoing disaster as a test of national character, suggesting that greatness would be forged in the fires of conflict. But, Vinen says, that central phrase also has an edge of pessimism. “If you say people are going to look back on June 1940 as our finest hour,” Vinen notes, “you also mean that one day that finest hour is going to be passed.” In other words, to declare a moment as the summit of national greatness is also, implicitly, to place that greatness in the past. As it turned out, that more pessimistic implication might have also been correct. Nazi Germany | A short course from HistoryExtra Academy Member exclusive | Everything you need to know about Nazi Germany, guided by historian, author and broadcaster Laurence Rees. Explore the course now Victory and memory Britain emerged from the Second World War on the winning side, but the costs of victory were immense. The country was financially exhausted, burdened by debt and increasingly dependent on the United States. At the same time, the foundations of the British empire were beginning to crumble. India gained its independence in 1947; other colonies would follow, as Britain’s global position steadily contracted in the post-war decades. In this new, diminished world, the memory of 1940 assumed even greater importance. “In some ways, a feature of post-war Britain is looking back to 1940 as though that was a moment of greatness that Britain can never recover,” Vinen says. Later decades – shaped by economic difficulty, imperial retreat and the loss of great-power status – could seem diminished by comparison. The more keenly 1940 shone in public memory, the easier it was for the post-war present to appear as a story of decline. Churchill’s own post-war story would have the same theme. Read more | How did the Nazis justify the Holocaust? “What they told us was, at the time, they felt it was the right thing to do” The former prime minister returned to Downing Street in 1951, serving a second term in office until 1955. “Almost nobody, and especially conservatives, regard that as a successful premiership,” Vinen says. Part of the explanation lies in the difference between leading in war and leading in peace. In 1940, Churchill’s gifts – his rhetoric, certainty, instinct for drama and refusal to contemplate surrender – were exactly what the national emergency demanded. But post-war Britain faced different challenges: the practical work of economic reconstruction, the expansion of the welfare state, the management of imperial decline and the realities of a world increasingly shaped by Cold War rivalry. “I think Churchill’s vision becomes, in some ways, out-of-date after 1945,” Vinen explains. A different path: de Gaulle Meanwhile, the other man who had tried to rouse his nation with a speech on 18 June 1940 charted a different path. Charles de Gaulle had laid the foundations for the Free French movement and helped sustain the idea of a France that hadn’t surrendered after military defeat, even while Phillipe Petain’s collaborationist Vichy regime conspired with Nazi Germany. But de Gaulle’s post-war career unfolded very differently to Churchill’s. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-120455835-1-ebef4e4-e1777471762782.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Black-and-white photograph of Charles de Gaulle in military uniform standing near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, speaking with Georges Bidault and others in a crowd." title="Charles De Gaulle And Georges Bidault In Paris, France On August 26, 1944 -" /> After a period in the political wilderness, de Gaulle returned to power in 1958 amid the crisis of the Algerian war and the collapse of the Fourth Republic. He oversaw the creation of the Fifth Republic, establishing a new constitutional settlement that greatly strengthened the presidency. “He then dominates France during the 1960s,” Vinen notes. “In some ways, de Gaulle’s great achievement is to be a peacetime leader more than a wartime leader.” He “moulds post-war France much more than Churchill moulds post-war Britain”. Rather than allowing wartime memory to define him completely, de Gaulle sought to reshape France for a changing world marked by decolonisation, technological change and new geopolitical realities. “He emphatically doesn’t want to be remembered as the man of 1940,” Vinen explains. De Gaulle recognised that France could not simply cling to the past. It had to adjust to weakened imperial power while still asserting its sovereignty and independence. This included pursuing an independent nuclear deterrent and carving out a distinct position within the Cold War order. “He understands modernity,” Vinen says. “He understands the challenges of new technology… [and] the way in which France can adjust to a new kind of position.” Churchill, by contrast, remained more attached to an older conception of Britain as a great imperial power with a global mission. “I think there is also a question of ego here,” Vinen suggests. Churchill “finds it very hard to walk away from power, and very hard to imagine what life is going to be like after it.” Meanwhile, “de Gaulle is, in a way, modest about himself,” Vinen says. “He doesn’t need to be the centre of attention.” He stepped away from power more than once, and when he finally left office in 1969 after losing a referendum, he did so decisively. He resigned the presidency and withdrew almost completely from public life. “He never goes to Paris again after he resigns,” Vinen notes, apart from a single family occasion. Instead, he retired to his home in Colombey-les-Deux-Églises and devoted himself to writing his memoirs. “It’s inconceivable that Churchill would have said, ‘I’m never going to visit the capital city again,’” Vinen concludes. Richard Vinen was speaking to James Osborne on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
When the Nazi leaders went on trial in Nuremberg from November 1945, the true horrors of their regime were exposed to the world
When the Nazi leaders went on trial in Nuremberg from November 1945, the true horrors of their regime were exposed to the world. In the second episode of our four-part series on the trials, the lawyer and author Philippe Sands chronicles the dramatic days when the likes of Hermann Goering and Hans Frank were forced to face their accusers in the courtroom. As he explains to David Musgrove, these were moments that those in attendance would never forget. Audio excerpts as presented from Court TV, via Robert H Jackson Center Watch the full episode, or listen ad-free at the link below: View Green Video on the source website Want to know more about the Nuremberg Trials? David Musgrove has curated a selection of essential reading from the HistoryExtra Magazine archive. Go beyond the podcast Philippe Sands is the author of East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2016)
Pageantry and politics: a history of British royal visits to the US
As transatlantic tensions swirled about King Charles III’s visit to Washington DC in 2026, Sam Edwards reveals how past royal tours have steadied the ‘special relationship’ in times of crisis
The April 2026 royal visit to the United States came at a particularly challenging moment for the US-UK ‘special relationship’. In the preceding months, President Donald Trump had repeatedly singled out prime minister Keir Starmer for blunt criticism, even going so far as to declare that Starmer as “no Churchill”. Meanwhile, the royal family similarly found itself caught up in transatlantic controversy: the Epstein scandal. If all that wasn’t challenging enough, King Charles’s visit to America also came at a time when the US-UK relationship was drawing even more scrutiny than usual. 2026 is year is the 80th anniversary of Winston Churchill’s famous ‘Iron Curtain’ speech, which popularised the phrase ‘special relationship’, and it’s also the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. The latter was of course the event that severed the connection between the American colonies and the British Crown and thereby put the transatlantic relationship onto a very different trajectory. In short, the visit came at a time of significant turbulence in the US-UK relationship. King Charles, however, might have been able to take some reassurance from the fact that several of his predecessors had similarly travelled to the United States during moments of challenge, change and upheaval... <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/2GettyImages-1320405043big-566d798-e1777245347971.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A large group of men and women in formal 19th-century dress gather outside a red-brick tomb set within a leafy landscape, their attention focused on a central meeting of figures. Women wear layered gowns with bonnets, while men in dark suits and top hats stand in lines, with trees and a distant sky framing the scene." title="A painting by Thomas Pritchard Rossiter captures the Prince of Wales’s historic visit to George Washington’s tomb in 1860. The young prince, who later ruled as Edward VII, can be seen standing with President James Buchanan to the right of the tomb’s entrance (Image by Getty Images)" /> 1860: The first royal visit The very first visit to the United States by a British royal came in 1860 and involved Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales. Its origins lay in an invitation received by Queen Victoria from Canadian leaders keen that she see for herself “the progress and prosperity of this distant part of your dominions”. Citing duty, the queen declined. But she despatched her eldest son in her place. When President James Buchanan got wind of the situation, he then saw an opportunity and so extended an invitation for the prince to journey south of the border. The royal household happily accepted, and the man destined to become Edward VII thereby became the first British royal to visit the United States. Conscious of diplomatic protocol, his visit to the US was billed as ‘private’, and so he travelled under one of his many other titles, Lord Baron Renfrew. The prince landed in Canada in July 1860 and spent two months touring, during which he was frequently greeted by cheering crowds. No one was quite sure, though, how he would be received when he crossed the border into the United States. After all, it was only just over 40 years prior that British soldiers had marched on Washington and burned down the White House. Still more recently, in the 1840s, the relationship between Britain and its former colonies had again been fraught, this time due to American designs on the Pacific Northwest. Read more | When was the White House built – and why is it white? There was no need to worry, however, as just like in Canada the prince received a rapturous welcome. Travelling unofficially as ‘Renfrew’, he was met in Washington by President Buchanan and spent some time touring the capital. But the most celebrated moment came a few miles away, at Mount Vernon in Virginia. Here, Lord Renfrew laid a wreath at the tomb of George Washington, the man who had of course defeated his great grandfather, George III, all those years ago. It was a powerful gesture, and it has been something of a royal rite of passage ever since. In 1970, for instance, the Prince of Wales – now King Charles III – laid his own wreath at Mount Vernon. Perhaps this month we will see his son, Prince William, do likewise. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/3EU058443-a21ccb9-e1777245457912.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="George VI leans forward to place a wreath against a white stone tomb, his figure slightly bowed in a solemn gesture. Rows of uniformed servicemen stand rigidly at attention on either side, while a small group of onlookers watches from the foreground." title="King George VI lays a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, 1939. The king’s five-day visit to the US, in which he met with President Franklin D Roosevelt, was the first such trip by a reigning British monarch (Photo by Topfoto)" /> 1939: The storm clouds of war The 1860 visit of ‘Lord Baron Renfrew’ occurred just as internal tensions in the United States were threatening to tear the country asunder. Within a couple of weeks of the prince’s departure, a new president – Abraham Lincoln – had been elected, while just a few months later war had broken out between North and South. The fighting would rage for the next four years, only ending in 1865. Almost 80 years later, in the summer of 1939, another American tour by British royalty likewise unfolded amidst the gathering storm clouds of war, albeit this time in Europe rather than in the United States. The 1939 visit by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth was a real landmark occasion: the first ever by a reigning British monarch. It came, moreover, at a particularly challenging moment for the royal family. Just three years earlier, in December 1936, Edward VIII abdicated the British throne. His decision provoked a constitutional crisis, but it also had ramifications for the US-UK relationship because it was at root a consequence of the king’s desire to marry an American divorcée, Wallis Simpson. The 1939 visit was thus a chance for the British royal family to shift the narrative. Equally important, it also provided an invaluable opportunity to strengthen transatlantic ties just as the Nazi threat in Europe intensified. The visit unfolded in June and was keenly supported by the US president, Franklin D Roosevelt (FDR). Like Lord Baron Renfrew’s visit in 1860, the royal tour took in a number of famous American landmarks, including Mount Vernon, where the British monarch followed the example set by his grandfather and laid a wreath at the tomb of George Washington. Read more | Why was George Washington the pride of Victorian England? Other significant episodes included a visit to the New York World’s Fair, a tour of the Capitol, and another wreath-laying, this time at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. Perhaps most famous of all, however, was the king and queen’s meeting with FDR at his Hyde Park home. To the delight of the American press, the king was seen enjoying typical American picnic fare: hot dogs! By all accounts, the 1939 royal visit was a success. One American observer later wrote that “Their Majesties’ hundred hours in the United States had given rise to an enthusiasm without parallel in American history”. Later, one US newspaper even declared that because of the King’s visit “the old bond between the democracies has taken on higher, warmer, yes friendlier qualities than it ever had before”. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/4GettyImages-79655098-fcd4ee0-e1777245704830.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A long line of cars moves down a wide, tree-lined avenue beneath a large triangular banner reading “Welcome Queen Elizabeth II”. Dense crowds line both sides of the road, with flags, uniforms and police escorts creating a sense of ceremony and scale." title="A motorcade marks Elizabeth II’s state visit to the United States in 1957. The young monarch faced the task of mending the so-called ‘special relationship’, which had been strained by the Suez Crisis (Photo by Getty Images)" /> 1957: The new Elizabethan era Despite the success of the 1939 visit, the Americans did not immediately commit themselves to the British cause when war broke out in Europe later that year. But once the United States had entered the war (in December 1941) an alliance of unprecedented closeness was indeed forged. For the British prime minister, Winston Churchill, this was the beginning of what he would call the “special relationship”, a transatlantic partnership built on shared history, culture, values, and sacrifice. Nonetheless, for all its undoubted closeness the special relationship was frequently tested during the Cold War, most famously during the Suez Crisis of late 1956. The crisis was precipitated by the decision of Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser to seize the Suez Canal zone, a vital trade route. In response, the British and French (with Israeli support) launched a military operation to regain control, but they did so without first securing American approval. Their actions quickly met with vigorous criticism from Washington, with President Eisenhower demanding an immediate Anglo-French withdrawal on pain of severe economic sanctions. Chastened, the British withdrew their forces, and with his credibility damaged beyond repair, prime minister Anthony Eden duly resigned, albeit citing ill health. Read more | How significant was the Suez Crisis? Among the first key tasks of the new government of prime minister Harold Macmillan was therefore to restore trust with Washington. Fortunately ‘Super Mac’, as he was known, was very well-placed to do so – he knew President Eisenhower from their service together during the Second World War, while his ties to ‘Ike’s’ successor, President John F Kennedy, were even closer: he was uncle-in-law to JFK’s younger sister Kathleen ‘Kick’ Kennedy (tragically killed in a plane crash in 1948). These close ties would certainly pay dividends, but when it came to rebuilding the special relationship Macmillan also had a trump card to play – royalty. The chance to play it finally came a year after the Suez crisis, in October 1957. Crowned in 1953 in a televised ceremony watched on both sides of the Atlantic, Queen Elizabeth II was eminently suited for the job of mending the special relationship, so recently strained by Suez. After all, she and the president were well-acquainted from the war years, and she was also already familiar with America. She had first visited – while still a princess – in 1951, during which visit she met with Eisenhower’s predecessor, President Harry Truman. The Queen was also very aware of the diplomatic impact of her parents’ visit in 1939. In short, this was one monarch ready and able to meet the challenge of the moment. The extent to which the 1957 state visit represented a clear attempt to restore the special relationship is quickly apparent in the itinerary. This was full of evocative symbolism and included a visit to Jamestown – to mark the 350th anniversary of English settlement – as well as a state dinner at the White House and a ticker-tape parade in New York City. It was a resounding success and was followed during her reign by no less than three more state visits to the United States. The second, in 1976, occurred during another testing moment in the transatlantic relationship. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/5GettyImages-57078933mod-0179412-e1777245939916.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Elizabeth II, wearing a sparkling tiara and sash, raises a glass as she smiles towards a suited President Gerald Ford returning the toast. A long table covered in bright flowers fills the foreground, with other formally dressed guests standing nearby." title="President Gerald Ford toasts Elizabeth II during the monarch’s 1976 state visit to the United States. The trip coincided with celebrations marking 200 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence (Photo by Getty Images)" /> 1976: The bicentennial The Queen’s 1976 state visit to the United States was purposefully timed so as to coincide with a major anniversary celebration – the bicentennial of the American Revolution. But like the visit of 1957 it also unfolded in the aftermath of significant transatlantic tensions, this time connected to the Vietnam War. The conflict in southeast Asia had dominated US foreign policy in the 1960s and early 1970s, and it also caused disagreements with European allies, including Britain. At the crux of the matter was the persistent refusal of the British government to send troops to fight alongside their American ally, a decision which drew pointed criticism from Washington. For both governments, the Queen’s 1976 state visit – which came at the invitation of President Gerald Ford – was thus an opportunity to reset the relationship after the recent disagreements. Read more | Queen Elizabeth II’s relationships with US presidents Like her 1957 visit, the details were worked out with an eye on the symbolism. The itinerary saw the Queen attend various bicentennial-focused ceremonies, and she also hosted her own reception at the British embassy in Washington. One of those in attendance declared that this was “the best diplomatic reception since King George VI and Queen Elizabeth visited in 1939”. But the highlight was a speech the Queen gave on her arrival at Philadelphia during which she expressed her “sincere gratitude” to “the Founding Fathers of this great republic for having taught Britain a very valuable lesson”. The Americans were delighted, with all differences – historic and recent – now happily forgotten. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/6GettyImages-117937786-1d6273a-e1777246001564.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Elizabeth II wears a pale green coat and wide-brimmed hat with a pink accent, leaning on a railing and looking ahead. Beside her, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and other spectators in formal attire watch the event, some holding binoculars." title="Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh watch the Kentucky Derby during the monarch’s fourth and final state visit to the United States, May 2007. Although the monarch was able to indulge her passion for horse racing, the trip came amid heightened tensions stemming from the War on Terror (Photo by Getty Images)" /> 2007: A fond farewell The Queen’s fourth and final state visit to the US was in 2007, and like all its predecessors it occurred amidst geopolitical turmoil (it was the same with the third, in 1991, which came amidst the collapse of the Soviet Union and shortly after the Gulf War). This time the turmoil was tied to the ongoing War on Terror, which had seen British forces again fight side by side with the American ally. But although this suggested that the special relationship was back on a sure footing elsewhere the picture was rather more complicated. American unilateralism had in fact strained the transatlantic relationship, producing significant anti-war sentiment in Britain as well as vocal criticism of Washington from other European allies (especially the French). Frustrated by what they felt to be his slavish devotion to the Americans, some in the British press had even characterised the prime minister, Tony Blair, as President Bush’s ‘lapdog’. Just as after both Suez and Vietnam, therefore, the 2007 state visit offered a chance to use pageantry and ceremony to repair some of the damage. This objective was again very apparent in the itinerary, which, in homage to the 1957 visit, included a trip to Jamestown, then marking the 400th anniversary of English settlement. Other stopovers, all of which were well-reported in the US press, included attendance at the Kentucky Derby (the Queen was well-known for her love of horse racing) as well as a formal state banquet at the White House. It was the latter which also produced one of the trip’s most memorable moments: while giving a toast, President George W Bush had thanked the Queen for her role in the bicentennial celebrations, erroneously suggesting while doing so that this had occurred in 1776 (rather than 1976). The Queen raised her eyebrows in response, which in turn led the president to quip that she had given him “a look that only a mother could give a child”.
I went digging for buried Nazi gold – and this is what I discovered
In January 2023, the Dutch national archives released a map purporting to show where a cache of stolen treasure was buried during the Second World War. Guy Walters reveals how he tried to track it down – and the dark backstory that gave rise to the legend
I have been appearing in history documentaries for the best part of 20 years. Usually, they are something to do with the Third Reich and for the most part, the documentaries are weighty and serious, as indeed they should be. But nearly every year, I get a call – normally from a junior producer or researcher – who tells me they wish to make a documentary about Nazi gold, and if so, do I know where they might find some? It’s at that point that I ask them to think about their question very carefully. If – I say – I did know the location of a load of Nazi bullion, do they think I would tell them? For a day rate? Furthermore, wouldn’t I have gone and dug it up myself, and currently be speaking from my 20-bedroom mansion in the Maldives? The line invariably goes silent as the logic of my position seeps in. I then add that if they really want to find themselves some Nazi gold, they should just go to Zurich or Geneva and knock on the door of any Swiss bank and ask for a peek in the vaults. So far, so cynical. But then, in January 2023, my position changed with an intriguing release from the Dutch national archives: a real-life treasure map, hand-drawn by a Nazi paratrooper, revealing where he and his comrades had buried a load of loot they had stolen towards the end of the war. The map even had a red ‘X’ that marked the spot, outside a village called Ommeren, along what was the Allied front line of Operation Market Garden in 1944. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/2-GettyImages-1458770332-473e6bd-e1776953190948.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A hand‑drawn map with labelled towns, a river running across the top, and a compass rose. At the bottom are two small inset drawings, including a terrain cross‑section and a landscape sketch." title="The hand-drawn map released by the Dutch national archives in January 2023, allegedly showing the site of a treasure trove near the village of Ommeren. But where does the map’s red ‘X’ sit within the modern landscape? (Image by Getty Images)" /> The story goes that during the military operation, a bank in Arnhem was hit by a bomb and a few German soldiers took what they could from the remains. As they retreated, they buried the treasure to keep it safe. So, this wasn’t technically Nazi gold, but it was close enough – actual treasure looted by actual Nazis! That would do nicely and might even make a good short film. And so, at 5am the following day, accompanied by my cameraman son William and his mate Magnus dragooned in to do the sound, I set off to the middle of the Netherlands from deepest Wiltshire, the boot of my creaking Land Rover loaded with picks and spades. All my grown-up historian’s wariness had melted away – I was literally on a hunt for Nazi gold. Digging for clues We arrived at the site at around lunchtime, not surprised to discover that others were hot on the trail too. We found a couple of teenagers uprooting a bush in someone’s front garden, but I was sure they were in the wrong place. Then we came across a man in his forties digging a very deep hole on the side of a road – he even had a professional metal detector – but he too was way out. After overlaying the rough treasure map on a Google Maps satellite view, we made our way to a spot near a wood, where we came across a retired businessman called Jan, who agreed that surely, we were pretty close to that tantalising red ‘X’. Read more | The strange story of the Nazi obsession with this legendary artefact still isn't over So out came my pick, and I dug. And dug. And dug. And – as I had subconsciously known would be the case all along – up came nothing. All I had to show for my labours were some very muddy jeans and a telling off from a policeman, who didn’t take kindly to a crazy Englishman excavating a significant part of his beat. With the light fading, we called it a day and rewarded ourselves with liquid gold in the form of the local brew. Despite my failure, I realised that the subject of Nazi gold might at least bring some TV treasure, rather than the actual stuff. The YouTube video we uploaded got a lot of views and was bought off William and turned into a streaming documentary by a production company. The Sunday Times even dedicated the whole third page of its news section to our adventures. All this attention convinced me there was a series in this, and soon the good folks at the History Channel had commissioned me to present and direct a six-part series called The Last Hunt for Nazi Gold. As well as looking for Nazi gold, my co-host Justine Ostrowska and I suspected it would be fun to broaden the remit, and so we included other treasures looted by the Nazis, such as the Amber Room (a gold-panelled chamber stripped from Russia’s Catherine Palace), the fabled Nazi gold train (an armoured locomotive stuffed with treasures, supposedly buried in Poland), and countless missing paintings. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/4CatherinePalaceAmberRoom-USED-8b43007-e1776953341999.jpg" width="1498" height="1000" alt="An opulent baroque room with amber‑toned wall panels, gold mouldings, framed paintings, chandeliers, and elegant furniture including draped chairs and display tables." title="The Amber Room in Russia’s Catherine Palace, 1931. A decade later, the advancing German army would dismantle and reconstruct the chamber in Königsberg Castle in what was then Prussia. No trace of the room was found at the end of the war" /> Gangsters and Monuments Men All of these are, in a sense, Nazi gold. The tone of the show, as you shall see, is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, and we have as much fun meeting the wonderful – and sometimes weird – characters who are obsessed that such-and-such a spot contains billions of pounds of treasure, as we do in doing the digging ourselves. But despite all the jocularity and my wariness of actually finding any treasure, the story of Nazi gold is a serious one. The Third Reich was undeniably a gangster state, and like all gangsters, the Nazis stole – and stole big time. Every country they invaded was plundered, its gold, silver, and other priceless treasures taken to Germany. Read more | Bitter end: Hitler's downfall and the end of the war and the Third Reich This is not to forget the gold stolen from the Jews, often gruesomely wrenched out of the mouths of so many corpses. It is hard to give a precise figure, but in today’s money, it is estimated that the Nazis stole some £8.5 billion worth of gold, of which some £1.5 billion to £3 billion was taken from Jews. This does not count the other treasures stolen, the value of which runs into the hundreds of billions. The first obvious question is this: where did it all go? The good news is that a lot was recovered. About half the bullion was found by the Americans in a massive mine called Merkers in Thuringia, while much other gold – and indeed silver – was found in banks in Berlin and throughout Germany. Another billion pounds’ worth was unearthed in the hills above Lake Walchensee in southern Bavaria, where it had been taken by mules led by Nazi soldiers at the end of the war. Many artworks were discovered in a salt mine above the village of Altaussee in Austria by the Americans and their unit of ‘Monuments Men’ – a team of art experts seconded into the army and later the topic of a 2014 George Clooney movie. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/5-GettyImages-542415475-806ecf7-e1776953439625.jpg" width="1498" height="1000" alt="An underground storage cavern with rough rock walls, lined with rows of tightly packed sacks and stacks of crates. A narrow rail track runs through the centre under overhead lights." title="Hundreds of sacks of bullion sit in the Merkers mine, Thuringia, 1945. Around half of the bullion looted by Nazis during the Third Reich was found here (Image by Getty Images)" /> And now for the next obvious question: how much is missing? It is impossible to give a reliable answer. Most sensible historians suspect the figure is very low, and if any gold is missing then it is extremely likely to lie in bank vaults in Switzerland. It is well known that many senior Nazis spirited their wealth into the country towards the end of the war, but thanks to the notorious secrecy of Swiss banking laws, to establish just how much is there – if any – is very difficult, to put it mildly. But Switzerland was not the only country where the Nazis sent their plunder, with countries such as Spain and Argentina also receiving Nazi wealth, which was often laundered through a system of dummy companies. Those of a more conspiratorial bent firmly believe that many millions of pounds worth of gold and artworks still lie hidden, and it is these characters that Justine and I decided to meet on our month-long road trip around central Europe over the summer. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/7-GettyImages-2238480486-abbd109-e1776953562783.jpg" width="1500" height="996" alt="Four uniformed soldiers stand on stone steps outside a large building. Three hold framed artworks, and a fourth stands behind them writing on a notepad." title="Four of the American ‘Monuments Men’ retrieve stolen paintings from Neuschwanstein Castle, c1945. The art experts were tasked with protecting and recovering cultural treasures stolen by the Nazis (Image by Getty Images)" /> Treasure hunters Armed with proper treasure-hunting equipment, including pickaxes and metal detectors, we joined forces with those who have been hunting Nazi gold and treasure for decades. Some of those we met more than raised our eyebrows, while others were far more plausible and made me reevaluate my scepticism. Among the latter was the charismatic Cornelia Ostler, who has been treasure hunting across Germany nearly all her life, a passion imbued in her by her late father, who was also a fanatical treasure hunter. Cornelia’s speciality is looking for the gold that she believes is still missing above Lake Walchensee. While many believe that it was all recovered, Cornelia is adamant that there is still some to be found, and her copious documentation and archive material is undoubtedly impressive – and pretty convincing. Also plausible was a friendly German chap called Jürgen Proske, with whom we spent a sweltering day high up a mountainside in a secret location in southern Germany. Like Cornelia, Jürgen has been hunting all his life, and while he may not have found any gold, he has certainly found all sorts of Nazi-era relics, some of which are of much historical interest, and even have some monetary value. Lending Justine his far more professional metal detector, I am delighted to report that we did indeed find something, and we found it quickly. I am not going to give away any plot spoilers, but all I can say is that Justine has not yet replaced her old Porsche. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/PXL20250814100051129crop-aa8bb9e-e1776953670954.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Two people stand among tall trees and dense greenery. One holds a metal detector, and the other, wearing a backpack, holds a walking stick." title="Lifelong treasure hunter Jürgen Proske shows Justine Ostrowska, co-host of The Last Hunt for Nazi Gold, how to use sophisticated metal detecting equipment (Image by Guy Walters)" /> What was refreshing about the likes of Jürgen and Cornelia is their acknowledgement that their chances are very slim indeed, but they both share a gut conviction that if there’s even a small chance of any Nazi gold still being out there, then it has got to be worth an effort. At the very least, treasure hunting is fun, good exercise, and as their spouses often comment, at least it’s a hobby that gets them out the house at the weekend. A dark legacy But then there are the hunters whose tales are just a little too tall for my taste. One of our ports of call was Wałbrzych in southwest Poland, where it is said that a whole train of Nazi gold is hidden in a hillside. The leading proponent of this theory is Piotr Koper, who says that he has spent the value of a second home in looking for the train. He has commissioned extensive ground radar surveys, and while the endless readouts and bits of data all seem very impressive, I’m not sure they scream ‘Nazi gold train’ at me. Read more | Before the Nuremberg Trials, this was Winston Churchill’s shocking plan for Nazi war criminals Nevertheless, we did go and have a look, and unfortunately all Justine found was the existence of a place which truckers seem to regard as an open-air lavatory, a discovery that meant we had to keep the windows open when Justine got back in the Jeep. Then there was Burkhardt List, a historian and inveterate treasure hunter, who is absolutely determined that a stash of artwork worth hundreds of millions is located deep beneath a clearing in a wood near the Czech-German border. I liked Burkhardt, but as the show reveals, I didn’t care much for his theory. When I asked him what was stopping him from trying to arrange an excavation, he looked at me darkly and informed me that the ‘Fourth Reich’ was against him, and that agents of this nefarious network of neo-Nazis had even gone so far as to attempt to poison him. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/PXL202508141119070082-9c15a00-e1776953836350.jpg" width="1498" height="1000" alt="Four people stand close together outdoors, smiling in front of a wooden structure and greenery. They wear casual clothing, including grey, yellow, light green, and black shirts." title="Guy Walters with treasure hunters Jürgen Proske and Sebastian Eberle, and the programme’s co-host Justine Ostrowska (left to right). “If there’s even a small chance of any Nazi gold still being out there, then it has got to be worth an effort,” says Walters (Image by Guy Walters)" /> Ultimately, the biggest lesson I learned from The Last Hunt for Nazi Gold was that you never know. It is easy to be sceptical, and to be honest, I largely still am, but there are enough sensible people who think there might be a bar or two of gold kicking around some Mitteleuropean mountainside. And of course, if they find it, then perhaps they will end up in their very own mansion in the Maldives. But then again, the decent thing to do would be to give it back to those from whom it was stolen. What’s important to remember is that the story of Nazi gold, while entertaining on one level, is also very dark indeed. Guy Walters is a historian, author and journalist. He is the co-host of The Last Hunt for Nazi Gold, a Sky History documentary
What should we do with the Nazis? The road to the Nuremberg Trials
At the end of the Second World War, the victorious Allies had to decide the fates of the surviving leaders of a regime that had initiated the bloodiest conflict in history, and perpetuated the Holocaust
At the end of the Second World War, the victorious Allies had to decide the fates of the surviving leaders of a regime that had initiated the bloodiest conflict in history, and perpetuated the Holocaust. The answer, beginning just a few months after VE Day, was the world’s first ever international criminal trial, held in the German city of Nuremberg. As we reach the 80th anniversary of these events, David Musgrove is joined by the lawyer and author Philippe Sands to explore how this groundbreaking trial was conceived amid the rubble of the Reich. Watch the full episode, or listen ad-free at the link below: View Green Video on the source website Want to know more about the Nuremberg Trials? David Musgrove has curated a selection of essential reading from the HistoryExtra Magazine archive. Go beyond the podcast. Philippe Sands is the author of East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2016).
The battle of the Arctic: the forgotten crucible of WW2
Hugh Sebag-Montefiore considers the significance of the battle of the Arctic in shaping the outcome of the Second World War
The US and UK supplied the USSR with vast amounts of military materiel during the Second World War via the Arctic convoys. In this episode, Hugh Sebag-Montefiore speaks to David Musgrove about the importance of this campaign in shaping the outcome of the war – and details the many horrors faced by the merchant sailors who made the difficult and dangerous journey from Iceland to Russia.
Want to understand modern Britain? Look towards its villages
This year we celebrate 75 years of The Archers. Now, I confess I haven’t listened to the series for a while – not since the riveting plot 10 years back about coercive control, with Rob Titchener and Helen Archer. But, if any show on radio or TV is iconic, it’s The Archers, the story of an English village over time, “an everyday story of country folk”, (though now billed as “a contemporary drama in a rural setting”). The characters – the Grundys, the Archers, the Pargetters – and the places – Grey Gables, Brookfield Farm, the Bull, St Stephen’s church – have become so real that in 1981 their history was published in Ambridge: An English Village Through the Ages, with photos, maps, court rolls, Tudor wills, even an Æthelstan charter! All fiction, of course, but perfectly realised. The world’s longest-running radio serial was born out of the Second World War. Its first pilot episodes were broadcast in May 1950 and the series started properly on New Year’s Day 1951, in a snowbound world of austerity and rationing. It was originally created by a veteran of the wartime Ministry of Information, Godfrey Baseley. Based on Cutnall Green and Inkberrow in Worcestershire, the series was driven by the Reithian ideal of ‘inform, educate and entertain’. But it was also designed to reflect reality, conceived as a means of disseminating information to farmers and smallholders to help increase productivity in the era of rationing and food shortages. Originally produced with collaborative input from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, it has had a farming consultant ever since. Read more | The radio revolution: how Britain found its frequency It was an instant hit. Its regular 9 million listeners peaked in 1955 at 20 million, when Grace Archer died in a barn fire. At its heart was a simple idea: that the village is the quintessential microcosm of English life, the imagined community to which we all dream of belonging. England is a village! We’ve had villages since the Roman period. There were free communities, but most were of dependent peasants. Life was hard, even when not in the grip of plague and famine. The bulk of England’s population was rural; only in the 18th century did the massive shift begin towards towns and cities. By the 19th century we start to view the village with nostalgia – Victorian records like the famous Warwickshire Photographic Survey chronicled an already disappearing way of life. Since 1945, the past has accelerated away from us at an ever faster rate. In 1969, in his landmark Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village, Ronald Blythe offered an uncompromisingly realistic portrait detailing the end of the old English village, with interviews that are already records for the historian. But the idea was still potent; in 2010 we made our TV series (Michael Wood’s Story of England) on Kibworth, Leicestershire, inspired by the great WG Hoskins who suggested that the whole history of the country could be told through one village. Kibworth was that for our time. And now time has moved on again. In Ambridge, big farms have replaced smallholders; Grey Gables is a spa hotel. But the myth still endures. And maybe not just a myth. What The Archers shows is that the village still stands for the idea of community, a word more and more in use now as we search for our commonality. A place of 500 or a thousand people, where everyone knows each other, and each other’s business, but who always help out in an emergency; a place where we can still feel connected and hold that dream of a harmonious vision of society. Read more | Michael Wood on the struggle of memory against forgetting | "Place names are signposts to the past" In reality, of course, the English village has always been shaped by inequality and class conflict. Still today less than 1 per cent of the population owns half the land; a third is still owned by the aristocracy and gentry. Some of us may fret about migrants, but the village always had its newcomers – Frisians, Saxons, Angles, Jutes, Danes, Normans, Huguenots, Africans, West Indians, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis. That is who we are. And today that changing sense of community is being augmented by a huge wave of local historians researching families, farms and places, injecting new energy into the historiography of the village – even though, as is the case for most of us these days, our village is now inside the city. Hoskins is still right: the whole story can be told in any one place. And now in 2025 if we were to look for a real Ambridge, why not choose somewhere like Handsworth, near Birmingham, home of the Lunar Society of Matthew Boulton and the scientific and social revolutionaries of the 18th century; of Lord Bill Morris of the TUC; of Stevie Winwood, Benjamin Zephaniah and Joan Armatrading. Now wouldn’t that be fun? And how revealing about us, at this new moment in our ever-changing story. This article was first published in the March 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine
8 weird stories from the Space Age: from hungry tortoises to gorilla suits
As the Artemis II mission prepares to send humans around the moon, Jonathan Wright explores the stranger side of space history – from UFO sightings to Cold War curiosities and beyond
Exploring space is a serious business. To use the term employed by Tom Wolfe in his 1979 book about the first US test pilots to enter astronaut training, you need the “right stuff” to sit atop an enormous firework leaving the protection of our atmosphere. But space travel is also a human endeavour. In the heavens as on Earth, that means it throws up stories that can be bizarre, funny or melancholy. As Nasa prepares to send astronauts back to the vicinity of the moon for the first time since 1972, here are eight strange-but-true tales from the ongoing history of the Space Age. 1. Ballistic legacy At the end of the Second World War, the USSR and the US competed to snaffle up as much German rocketry expertise and kit as possible. So it was that, despite his Nazi past, V-2 co-designer Wernher von Braun became chief architect of the Apollo programme’s Saturn V rocket. Less well remembered is the role of the V-2 itself in space exploration. In 1945, US Army Special Mission V-2 recovered parts and equipment needed to make the missiles from an underground factory in eastern Germany. Subsequently, much of the haul was taken to the White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico, where initial work resulted in the assembly of 25 rockets. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/1aGettyImages-544605263-d284276-e1775049918462.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A mid-20th-century photograph of a suited man seated at a desk, holding a pen and looking towards the camera. In front of him are several model rockets and a black rotary telephone. Behind him, a large illustration shows a spacecraft flying past the moon." title="Wernher von Braun - director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center" /> The first flights from the US followed in the spring of 1946. By October, the grandly named Upper Atmosphere Research Panel was expert enough in launching missiles to use one to capture the first photograph of the Earth from space. A terror weapon had found a more noble purpose. 2. The dog who died In the early years of spaceflight, it was far too dangerous to send humans into the great beyond. Instead, scientists sent animals. As early as 1946, the Americans blasted fruit flies into space. Monkeys and mice followed in their wake. But perhaps the most famous creature to leave Earth was Laika (‘Barker’). A stray mongrel, she was taken off the streets of Moscow by biologists working for the city’s Aviation Institute – the idea being to find animals that were friendly yet also tough, streetwise. And female, so they wouldn’t need to cock their legs to pee. On 3 November 1957, Laika became the first animal to orbit the Earth. Listen now | Animals in space: the creatures who paved the way for human travel beyond Earth Sadly, at a time when re-entry technology had yet to be developed, she died of hyperthermia. But her journey aboard Sputnik 2, nicknamed ‘Muttnik’ by the US press, captured the public’s imagination. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/2GettyImages-515031406-bdd929d-e1775048742214.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black-and-white photograph of a small dog seated inside a cramped, capsule-like apparatus. The dog is strapped into a harness, with its head and front paws visible through an open front panel. The surrounding structure appears metallic and enclosed, with wires, bolts and curved casing." title="Laika, Russian Astro Dog" /> 3. Space pup détente Unlike the ill-fated Laika, Belka (‘Squirrel’) and Strelka (‘Little Arrow’) survived spaceflight. In August 1960, aboard Korabl-Sputnik 2, the two dogs circled the Earth for 27 hours in the company of 40 mice, a couple of rats, a grey rabbit and some flies. The serious point of the exercise was to understand how time in zero gravity would affect the creatures. Strelka had six puppies. In 1961, Nikita Khrushchev sent one of the puppies, Pushinka, ‘Fluffy’, to President John F Kennedy. Once the FBI had checked out Pushinka for surveillance bugs, she joined the First Family. Less suspicious was the Kennedys’ pet dog Charlie, who fathered four ‘pupniks’ in June 1963. Although JFK wrote to Khrushchev to thank him for the gift, he was allergic to Pushinka, who made him sneeze and brought him out in a rash. 4. Aliens ahoy? Considering the rigorous psychological evaluations required to become an astronaut, it’s unsurprising that few spacefarers have reported seeing UFOs – when they have sighted odd objects, they have offered rational explanations for what they saw. The template for this approach was set by astronaut Jim McDivitt. Read now | How UFOs conquered the world – without firing a shot Aboard Gemini IV in 1965, he reported spotting an object that was “like a beer can or a pop can, and with a little thing like maybe like a pencil or something sticking out of it”. He never saw this as an example of an alien visitation. Rather, he thought he was probably looking at a piece of ice or insulation that had broken off his craft. That hasn’t stopped more lurid stories of UFO sightings spreading, including one involving Neil Armstrong, Apollo 11 and fake “secret moon transcripts”. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/62HJCPDX-9d175f4-e1775049594902.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A colour photograph showing two astronauts seated side by side inside a spacecraft cockpit. Both wear white space suits and large, clear-visor helmets, with one astronaut in the foreground looking down and the other slightly behind, facing forward. The interior is tightly packed with metal panels, wiring and controls, conveying the confined, technical environment of an early space mission." title="Astronauts Edward H. White II (left) and James A. McDivitt inside the Gemini IV spacecraft wait for liftoff. The objective of the Gemini IV mission was to evaluate and test the effects of four days in space on the crew, equipment and control systems. Pilo" /> 5. The tortoises who survived The Nasa astronauts heading for the moon in April will be following not just their predecessors aboard Apollo missions, but those who journeyed on the Soviet Union’s Zond 5 spacecraft. This left the Baikonur Cosmodrome on 15 September 1968. Its payload included fruit fly eggs, plants and two tortoises, the first creatures to fly beyond Earth orbit and circle the moon. They returned on 21 September 1968. Despite splashing down in the Indian Ocean rather than landing back in Kazakhstan as planned, the tortoises lived through the experience, albeit they had lost 10 per cent of their bodyweight and were subsequently dissected. The mission was also notable in providing high-quality photographs of the Earth from 90,000km out in space. 6. Posthumous Explorer The death of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry in 1991 robbed the world of the Space Age’s greatest optimist, a man whose work suggested humanity’s future would be spent zipping around the cosmos. And, in the case of James T Kirk, fighting aliens, bickering with his crewmates and kissing any willing women in his vicinity. Boldly going where few have gone before, Roddenberry requested his remains be sent into space. In 1992, his wish was partially honoured when astronaut James Weatherbee carried a portion of Roddenberry’s ashes with him aboard Space Shuttle Columbia. Although the remains were brought back to Earth, this is widely thought to have been the first space ‘burial’. Founded in 1994, Houston-based “memorial spaceflight” specialists Celestis have turned off-Earth undertaking into a business by buying ‘secondary payload’ slots on launch vehicles. They have twice taken small portions of Roddenberry’s ashes aloft, most recently in January 2024 when Roddenberry and his wife, actor Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, were among those fired into deep space as part of the maiden mission of the Vulcan Centaur heavy-lift launch vehicle – marketed as the Enterprise Flight. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/102WD95N4-c2109b7-e1775049710517.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A night-time photograph of a rocket launching from a pad, brightly illuminated as flames and exhaust billow beneath it. Tall gantry structures and towers frame the rocket, while thick clouds of smoke spread across the ground. The surrounding area is dark, with the launch creating a dramatic contrast against the night sky." title="A portion of Gene Roddenberry's cremated remains were fired into space as part of the inaugural Vulcan Centaur launch in January 2024 (Photo by Alamy)" /> 7. Sitting in a tin can, far above the sky At midnight on 31 December 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to be a sovereign state. This put cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev in a tricky situation. The country that had put him aboard the Mir space station no longer existed and nobody seemed in any massive hurry to bring him home. Another issue was Russia’s dire financial situation. While other countries paid for places on missions to and from the station, Krikalev stayed in situ. Plus, had he left, the station would likely have had to be abandoned because it would have been without a flight engineer. Read now | The Space Race: The Cold War rivalry that put humans on the moon Ten months after he had departed terra firma, a man dubbed “The Last Soviet Citizen” at last went home. His mission had lasted twice as long as planned. But he doesn’t hold the record for the longest single stay in space. This belongs to Valeri Polyakov, who spent 437 days aboard Mir in 1994–95. Returning to Earth, he said he wanted to prove humans could cope with travelling to Mars. 8. Silly ape In 2016, future senator and former astronaut Mark Kelly sent a gorilla suit to his identical twin brother, Scott. An unusual gift, especially as Scott was at this point resident on the International Space Station and the suit was smuggled aboard via a SpaceX cargo mission. The result of this tomfoolery was a viral video showing Scott, dressed as an ape, chasing around British astronaut Tim Peake. The Kellys built on a rich tradition of taking contraband into space that dated back to March 1965, when Gemini III astronaut John Young carried a corned beef sandwich into orbit. According to Young, it seemed like “a fun idea at the time”. Nasa bigwigs, worried about crumbs damaging delicate equipment, were not amused. Lead image by Nasa/Ben Smegelsky
Nato is in crisis. Can history predict what happens next?
As tensions build between the US and its long-term allies, historian Sam Edwards examines how the international military organisation has withstood moments of turbulence in the past – and whether we can glean any lessons for the future
“If there's no response – or if it's a negative response – I think it will be very bad for the future of Nato.” So said US President Donald Trump in March 2026, after asking European allies for their help in securing the Strait of Hormuz. This primary export route for most of the world's largest oil and gas fields had lately been declared closed by Iran as a response to US-Israeli military operations. However, the response to the president’s call to aid to his European allies has, so far, been distinctly muted. No doubt this is in part because much of Europe is still reeling from the events at the start of the year. Back in January, the American-led alliance was thrown into disarray by the president’s desire to assert control over Greenland – a semi-autonomous territory of Nato member Denmark. At the height of the crisis, with Trump adamant that the US “needed” Greenland “very badly”, the Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen went so far as to say that "if the United States chooses to attack another Nato country militarily, then everything stops. That includes Nato, and thus the security that has been provided since the end of the Second World War." Now, amid renewed transatlantic tensions stemming from the US–Israeli war with Iran, those key questions provoked by the recent Greenland debacle have resurfaced again: is Nato in crisis, and can it endure? Read more | Winston Churchill created the special relationship. Could Donald Trump kill it? On the latter, history does at least provide some reassurance. In fact, surviving crises is something of a Nato speciality. Nato’s troubled origins The alliance initially coalesced in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, a period characterised by growing concern in the west about the expanding influence and power of the Soviet Union. In March 1946, Winston Churchill warned that an “Iron Curtain” had descended “from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic”. A year later, in an effort to “contain” the threat of Soviet expansion, President Harry Truman proclaimed the ‘Truman Doctrine’ asserting that the US would provide aid to democratic nations under threat from communist forces. East-West tensions ramped up still further during the Berlin Blockade of 1948–49, after which 12 nations decided to establish a formal military alliance. The result was the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which commits its signatories to the principle of collective defence. It wasn’t long, though, before internal tensions began to emerge. Nato from Suez to Iraq Among the first major challenges to internal Nato cohesion arose during the Suez Crisis in 1956. Built by the French, the Suez Canal – linking the Red Sea with the Mediterranean through Egypt – was a key strategic pipeline for trade, not unlike the Strait of Hormuz today. It was of particular importance to both the French and British empires because it drastically shortened the shipping route from Europe to Asia. Aware of its strategic significance and keen to remove European influence and control, the nationalist Egyptian government of Gamal Abdel Nasser ordered that the canal zone be nationalised. In response, the British and French (with Israeli support) launched a military operation to seize the canal – an action that caused consternation in Washington. Angered by the lack of prior consultation, President Dwight D Eisenhower ultimately forced an Anglo-French withdrawal by threatening dire economic consequences. Humiliated, the British prime minister Anthony Eden later resigned, while the French concluded that the Americans could not really be trusted. This was an “out of area” crisis because it occurred well away from the North Atlantic, but it still placed a significant strain on the Nato alliance. Further internal Nato strains appeared in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a nuclear standoff which pitted the US against the Soviet Union, with the former attempting to strongarm the latter into withdrawing its nuclear weapons from the communist Caribbean state. Read more | Have nuclear weapons helped to maintain global peace? This time, the roles were reversed and it was the Europeans who were angered by an apparent lack of consultation – an issue of real concern given how dangerously close the world came to potential Armageddon. The Cuban Missile Crisis: World on the Brink Member exclusive | In this HistoryExtra podcast series, we explore the roots of the Cold War standoff and meet the key players in the confrontation. We track the pivotal 13 days at its centre, and the Cold War alliances that saw diplomatic tensions escalate to breaking point Listen to all episodes now Similar European frustrations with US leadership later led to the alliance’s most significant crisis of the Cold War era. In 1966, unhappy with what he perceived as American influence in French foreign policy and the risk of being dragging into US-led conflict, President Charles de Gaulle removed the French military from Nato’s integrated military command. Rubbing salt in the wound, he also demanded that all US troops leave French soil. Read more | Who owns Greenland? Why the island's history is more complicated than you think Elsewhere, even the often-proclaimed US–UK ‘special relationship’, for so long a cornerstone of Nato, came under strain during the 1960s, largely because of the war in Vietnam. Harold Wilson’s government refused repeated American requests to send troops to south-east Asia in support of the US, which jaundiced President Johnson’s view of the British as an ally. However, despite their undoubted impact, none of these various Cold War crises led to Nato’s demise. The alliance survived and, indeed, played a key role during the heightened east–west rivalry of the 1980s. Internal tensions re-emerged following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. With the principal enemy now gone, the alliance found itself in uncharted waters. One consequence of this was transatlantic differences of opinion regarding Nato’s role and purpose. This later came to a head during the Global War on Terrorism, as it was labelled by the US. Following a significant show of unity after 9/11 – which saw Nato invoke Article 5 (the mutual defence clause) for the first and only time in its history– a key point of divergence subsequently emerged around the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The UK and Poland lent Washington support, including troops, but the French and Germans vocally opposed the action. As a result, one commentator declared that the debate on Iraq had “provoked one of the worst transatlantic crises – and one of the worst intra-European crises – of the entire post-Second World War period”. How Nato has endured Over its lifetime, Nato – which now comprises 32 members – has seen plenty of internal disagreement and, on occasion, full-blown crisis. But no dispute has so far fatally compromised the alliance. This is because, fundamentally, Nato members do seem aligned on two key ideas. First, the peace and prosperity of Europe and of the north Atlantic region is of the utmost importance. And second, Nato remains the best mechanism through which to defend the interests and security of all of its members – including its most powerful, the US. This is why the Trump administration stepped back from the brink after staking verbal claims Greenland. Read more | Nato, Russia, and the history of the post-WW2 tensions As in earlier instances of internal tension, transatlantic trust has certainly been damaged. Real ideological distance remains between the current US administration and many European allies. But the alliance endures because, beyond the disagreements, common interests remain strong. And as the history of Nato suggests, it’s often in those very moments of crisis that this inescapable fact returns to the fore. As Churchill famously observed in the 1940s, “there is only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them.”
Meet the embattled French WW2 leader who withstood the Nazis – and Winston Churchill
In June 1940, as France collapsed and Britain faced the prospect of resisting the Nazis alone, Winston Churchill searched for a French leader willing to keep fighting
In early June 1940, Europe was in freefall. Germany’s invasion of France and the Low Countries – launched in May 1940 – had overturned the presiding strategic assumptions of the First World War. Instead of the slow stalemate of trench warfare, German ‘Blitzkrieg’ tactics had combined tanks, aircraft and rapid manoeuvre to devastating effect. German armoured divisions had burst through the Ardennes and driven deep into France, prompting the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk from 26 May, fleeing from the incoming Nazi military storm. Paris would then fall on 14 June. The French government was retreating in stages, and within weeks, the Third Republic – France’s democratic regime since 1870 – had effectively fallen. For Britain – now led by Winston Churchill, who had taken office only weeks earlier – the stakes seemed existential. Churchill had replaced Neville Chamberlain in May 1940, inheriting a war effort that was already faltering. If France were to leave the war, Britain faced the very real prospect of an attempted German invasion. If there was anyone within the French political or military establishment willing to continue the war from overseas (perhaps from North Africa, where France still possessed territory and troops) Britain needed that person to come to the fore. The individual who would rise to the moment, and come to symbolise Free France was not, at that moment, an obvious candidate. Churchill and de Gaulle’s first encounters in crisis Charles de Gaulle first came to London on 9 June, “which is when he first meets Churchill”, historian Richard Vinen explains, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast. “Churchill likes him.” When de Gaulle fatefully arrived in London, he was far from the towering statesman who would come to define the coming decades of French history. He held the post of Under-Secretary of State for National Defence and War in the French government – a relatively junior position – and was little known outside France. Read more | How Nazi investigators used secret tools to create Hitler’s Holocaust ‘hitlist’ Churchill, newly installed as prime minister, admired de Gaulle. “He likes someone who displays resolution in the face of impending defeat,” Vinen says. They met again during the desperate consultations held as the French government retreated south. Churchill would later claim he recognised de Gaulle’s historic importance straight away, recalling that he had immediately referred to de Gaulle as “the Man of Destiny” – something that Vinen says de Gaulle always denied. However, de Gaulle certainly wasn’t the obvious – or desired – choice of leader for the French resistance. Not the obvious choice At this stage, the French cabinet was deeply divided between those who wished to continue the war from the empire and those who favoured seeking terms with Germany. “We sometimes think de Gaulle comes over to London in June 1940 and then he’s the leader of the Free French and that’s it,” Vinen says. “Actually, the British are always looking around to see if they can find someone more important.” Georges Mandel, France’s Interior Minister, commanded respect and was known as a determined opponent of Germany. “Mandel… is someone the British place a lot of hope in,” Vinen explains. He appeared to have greater political weight than de Gaulle. Read more | Did Hitler have a secret Jewish grandfather? Our DNA research has solved the mystery General Weygand was another possibility. Churchill had known him since the First World War. However, despite being regarded as a staunch nationalist and opponent of Germany, Weygand would later align with Marshal Philippe Pétain – the French First World War hero who would head the collaborationist regime based in Vichy. “Churchill is ruthless as a war leader,” Vinen says. “If he had found someone who suited British interests better, he would have backed that person and abandoned de Gaulle.” How de Gaulle’s life was shaped by Germany Why did Churchill stick with de Gaulle? Part of the answer, Vinen says, was his personality. De Gaulle had grown up in a nationalist Catholic family marked by France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. That war had led to the loss of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany and left a legacy of resentment and revanchism in French political culture. De Gaulle fought in the First World War, though was captured at the battle of Verdun in March 1916 and spent the rest of the conflict as a prisoner of war in Germany. “His whole life is about Germany,” Vinen says. “He takes it for granted that fighting Germany is something one should do.” Many French politicians in 1940 were hostile to Germany. The deeper difference that set de Gaulle apart lay in how he understood France itself. An abstract idea of France “The reason he wants to go on fighting in 1940 and others don’t is partly that he has a rather abstract view of France,” says Vinen. De Gaulle’s memoirs open with a famous declaration: “All my life I have had a certain idea of France.” That idea was an almost metaphysical belief of France as a country of distinct status and dignity. That meant that, in 1940, when many French leaders supported an armistice, de Gaulle was staunch in his will to resist. “De Gaulle’s idea of France is sometimes separate from the interests of particular French people,” Vinen explains. “It’s that idea of France as something special that he believes he is protecting in 1940, even if that means terrible sacrifices for the French.” Another of his statements captured this conviction: “France cannot be France without greatness.” Read more | Hitler's war on words: how the Nazis used art to bolster their murderous regime Years later, reflecting on the crisis of 1940, de Gaulle remarked that he had feared France might survive merely as “a nation of cooks and hairdressers”, a country reduced to comfort and domesticity, stripped of military and political stature. “He wants France to be a nation of soldiers and a nation of greatness,” Vinen says. That belief drove his refusal to accept defeat. On 18 June 1940, broadcasting from London, de Gaulle issued an appeal urging French soldiers, engineers and workers to continue the fight. Though heard by relatively few at the time, his appeal later became the symbolic foundation of the Free French movement. Churchill admired courage, and in 1940 de Gaulle displayed it unmistakably. Vinen suggests Churchill was “sentimentally attracted to him” for that reason. But that admiration didn’t prevent conflict between the two leaders. Nazi Germany | A short course from HistoryExtra Academy Member exclusive | Everything you need to know about Nazi Germany, guided by historian, author and broadcaster Laurence Rees. Explore the course now “De Gaulle and Churchill’s relationship was sometimes quite stormy,” Vinen says. There were “spectacular arguments” between them. Free French forces depended heavily on British resources and recognition, but de Gaulle resisted any suggestion that he was subordinate to London. Towards the end of 1942, Churchill again contemplated whether de Gaulle might be replaced by another French general. And in 1944, as preparations for the Normandy landings intensified, tensions resurfaced. Churchill regarded D-Day as a vast military operation requiring strict unity. But De Gaulle insisted that French authority and national pride be visibly restored on liberated soil. “They were at cross purposes,” Vinen explains. Those disputes, particularly before D-Day, “haunted their relationship and, in de Gaulle’s view, haunted the relationship between Britain and France for a long time afterwards”. Why Churchill stuck with de Gaulle Despite frequent doubts and frustrations, Churchill ultimately supported de Gaulle and retained him as an ally. Partly this was due to circumstance: alternative French figures either aligned with the Vichy regime or failed to establish credible independence. But it was also because de Gaulle embodied something irreplaceable. In the summer of 1940, when the French state sought an armistice with Hitler, de Gaulle was a figure who projected an image of unrelenting defiance. With France’s future in the balance, it was de Gaulle’s stubborn idea of France that gave him convincing heft. He withstood both the Nazis, and the doubts of allies who wondered whether someone else might serve them better. Richard Vinen was speaking to James Osborne on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.