Podcasts by Witness History: World War Two

Japan surrenders in China from 2023-07-19T09:00

In the autumn of 1945, World War II surrender ceremonies took place across the Japanese Empire.

The one in China was held at the Forbidden City in Beijing bringing an end to eight years o...

Lee Miller in Hitler's bath from 2023-06-12T09:00

Vogue's war correspondent Lee Miller found herself in Adolf Hitler's Munich apartment when the news broke that he was dead.

Earlier that day, she and fellow photographer David Scherman had...

Last communist march before Hitler from 2023-06-08T09:00

On 25 January 1933 the last legal communist march was held in Berlin.

Just a few days later Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany.

Soon the Communist Party was banned and the Naz...

The Dambusters from 2023-05-17T09:00

In the early hours of 17 May 1943 a bold World War II attack destroyed two dams in the Ruhr Valley in Germany's industrial heartland, causing 1,600 casualties and catastrophic flooding which ham...

German child evacuees of World War Two from 2023-05-16T09:00

Beginning in 1940 thousands of German children were evacuated to camps in the countryside to avoid the bombs of World War Two.

These camps were seen as safe places where they could continu...

World War II victory in North Africa from 2023-05-12T09:00

Peter Royle, 103, endured a month of solid fighting in the hills outside of Tunis in 1943. Eventually the Allies prevailed and took more than 250,000 German and Italian prisoners of war. They de...

Warsaw Ghetto uprising from 2023-05-11T09:00

In May 1943, the uprising in the Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw in Poland came to an end.

The Germans had crushed the uprising and deported surviving ghetto residents to concentration camps.

Pink Triangles: Gay men in Nazi concentration camps from 2023-02-28T10:00

In 2009, Rudolf Brazda, one of the last known survivors of the Pink Triangles, returned to the former site of Buchenwald concentration camp where he’d been imprisoned during World War Two, for b...

Families interned in WW2 China from 2023-02-23T15:25

Despite facing malnutrition, starvation and disease, Christopher John Huckstep's father set up a school in the Japanese internment camp where his family was sent in 1943.

Herbert Huckstep ...

World War Two child evacuees in Britain from 2022-09-19T09:00

The 1 September 1939 was Kitty Baxter’s ninth birthday, it was also the day her life and millions of other people’s changed with the beginning of World War Two.

Kitty was among the hundre...

Shanghai at War from 2022-05-19T09:00

In 1937, Japanese forces entered Shanghai - spelling the end of a period when the Chinese city had been a thriving commercial centre governed by international powers and known as the "Paris of t...

Britain's secret propaganda war from 2019-11-06T08:40

How sex, jazz and 'fake news' were used to undermine the Nazis in World War Two. In 1941, the UK created a top secret propaganda department, the Political Warfare Executive to wage psychological...

Broadcasting D-Day from 2019-06-06T07:50

Hear how the BBC reported the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France on June 6th 1944. The operation was a crucial step in the liberation of western Europe. Using original BBC reports from the ...

D-Day from 2019-06-04T07:50

Eyewitness accounts of the Allied landings on the coast of Normandy during World War Two on 6 June 1944. The massive operation was a crucial step in the liberation of western Europe from years o...

China and Japan at War from 2018-12-17T11:43

Japanese troops reached the Chinese city of Nanjing in December 1937. The violence that followed marked one of the darkest moments in a struggle that continued throughout WW2. Rebecca Kesby has...

Berlin's Rubble Women from 2018-12-03T08:50

At the end of WW2 much of Germany's capital had been destroyed by bombing and artillery. Almost half of all houses and flats had been damaged and a million Berliners were homeless. Caroline Wyat...

The Arnhem Parachute Drop from 2018-09-20T10:38

Thousands of Allied troops parachuted into the Nazi-occupied Netherlands in September 1944. At that point, it was the most ambitious Allied airborne offensive of World War Two. British, American...

The Climbers of Leningrad from 2017-12-28T08:50

Mountaineers risked their lives to camouflage churches and palaces in the great Russian city during World War Two. The city was besieged by the Germans and under bombardment. The climbers used...

The Fake IDs That Saved Jewish Lives from 2017-10-25T07:58

Soon after Hitler ordered the invasion of Hungary in March 1944, the Nazis began rounding up hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews. Most were immediately sent to their deaths in the concentrat...

Saving Italy's Art During WW2 from 2017-10-11T07:50

Italy's great works of art were threatened by bombing and looting during World War Two. But a plan known as 'Operation Rescue' was devised to keep the paintings and sculptures safe. Some were h...

Britain's Land Girls from 2017-09-26T07:50

Around 80 thousand women and girls volunteered to join the Women's Land Army during the Second World War. They helped provide vital food supplies to a country under siege. Kirsty Reid has spoke...

The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials from 2017-08-21T07:50

Hear from one of the German prosecution lawyers who helped put Nazi war criminals on trial 20 years after World War Two had ended. Gerhard Wiese has been speaking to Lucy Burns about the trial,...

The Sinking of the Lancastria from 2017-06-16T07:50

On 17 June 1940, a packed British troopship was sunk off the coast of France by German bombers. The ship had just picked up thousands of British military personnel left behind in France after th...

The Roma Victims of the Holocaust from 2017-05-23T07:50

In 1942, the fascist government of Romania deported 25,000 of its Roma citizens to the former Soviet territory of Transdniestria. Half of them died of hunger and disease. Dina Newman spoke to on...

The Katyn Massacre from 2017-04-11T07:50

Tens of thousands of Polish officers were secretly executed in the USSR during World War 2. The German occupying forces reported the first mass grave, in the village of Katyn in 1943, but Moscow...

The Germans Occupy Prague from 2017-03-16T09:06

On March 15th 1939, the German army occupied Czechoslovakia. Witness hears the story of one young boy who watched the German troops march into Prague and who later escaped on the Kindertransport...

Sara Ginaite Lithuanian Jewish Partisan from 2016-12-13T08:50

During World War Two, a young Jewish woman, Sara Ginaite, escaped from the Kaunas Ghetto in Lithuania to fight the Nazis, With her husband Misha, she joined a detachment of communist-led partisa...

Soviet Woman Bomber Pilot from 2016-12-06T09:00

Yelena Malyutina was a Soviet female bomber pilot who fought in WW2 and was wounded in action in 1944. She was in one of the three Soviet women's flying regiments which fought on the front line....

Italy's Partisan Fighters from 2016-09-05T08:00

In September 1943, Partisan fighters in Italy began organising in large numbers to help the Allies defeat Nazi Germany and rid their country of the remnants of Benito Mussolini's fascist state. ...

The Fall of Paris from 2016-06-17T12:49

In June 1940, German forces, having swept across Belgium and Holland, and into France, were closing in on Paris. In the face of the German army, millions of French, Dutch and Belgians had taken ...

The Imaginary War Heroes from 2016-05-09T08:00

During World War Two, Soviet propaganda promoted a heroic feat that never happened. It was the story of a small ill-equipped unit who destroyed over a dozen German tanks, delaying the German adv...

The Death of General Patton from 2015-12-21T09:33

In December 1945, one of America's most famous miltary commanders, General George S Patton, died from injuries sustained in a car crash, just months after the end of the Second World War. Witnes...

Surviving Pearl Harbor from 2015-12-02T09:00

On 7 December 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbour, Hawaii. Thousands of American servicemen died in a raid which brought their country into World War Two...

The Bari Raid 1943 from 2015-12-01T08:51

How a devastating air raid on the Italian port of Bari during World War Two led to the deadly release of mustard gas. Winston Churchill ordered the incident to be kept secret for years. We hear ...

Surviving Ravensbruck from 2015-11-26T22:13

In November 1938, the SS commander Heinrich Himmler ordered the construction in Nazi Germany of the only concentration camp built specifically for women. It would be called Ravensbruck. Selma va...

The Battle of El Alamein from 2015-11-05T08:50

In October and November 1942, the Allies fought a famous battle against German and Italian troops close to the small Egyptian village of El Alamein.

General Bernard Montgomery, the British...

The Leningrad Symphony from 2015-09-18T07:50

In an act of defiance during World War Two, starving musicians in the besieged city of Leningrad performed Shostakovich's new Seventh Symphony. The piece was composed especially for the city, wh...

The Auschwitz Cellist from 2015-08-29T08:00

In 1943, the cellist, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. She expected to be killed in the gas chambers, but survived because she was recruited to play in an or...

The Dieppe Raid from 2015-08-18T06:50

In the early hours of 19th August 1942, a convoy of Allied ships approached the port of Dieppe carrying more than 6,000 troops. The mainly Canadian force was supposed to carry out a hit and run ...

Scouts in the Warsaw Uprising from 2015-07-28T07:50

On 1 August 1944, the Warsaw Uprising against the Nazi occupation of Poland began. Hundreds of thousands of people died during the fighting and Poland's capital was almost completely destroyed. ...

German Re-Armament from 2015-07-03T08:00

In the 1930s Hitler began to rebuild Germany's armed forces. When WW1 ended Germany had been banned from having an air force under the Treaty of Versailles. Hear from Eric 'Winkle' Brown who as...

Red Cross Visits Nazi Concentration Camp from 2015-07-02T08:06

In June 1944 the International Red Cross was allowed by the Nazis into the Theresienstadt concentration camp. The Nazis tried to use the visit to project a positive image of their treatment of t...

The Eichmann Tapes from 2015-06-04T12:28

The Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann recorded hours of interview about his involvement in the Holocaust, before his capture in 1960 by Israeli agents. Witness talks to the daughter of the Dutch ...

VE Day from 2015-05-08T08:00

On 8 May 1945, hundreds of thousands of Londoners took to the streets to celebrate the end of World War II in Europe. BBC correspondents captured the scenes of joy across the city - from the East E...

Stalin's Interpreter from 2015-03-05T08:50

Josef Stalin died on 5 March 1953. Valentin Berezhkov was his translator - at the Russian leader's side for negotiations with Hitler, Roosevelt and Churchill during the World War Two.

The Battle of Iwo Jima from 2015-02-26T09:00

In February 1945 US Marines fought the Japanese in one of the fiercest battles of WW2. Thousands of lives were lost in almost five weeks of fighting for control of the Pacific island.Witness speaks...

The Bombing of Dresden from 2015-02-12T08:50

On February 13th 1945 the Allies began a series of air raids against the German city of Dresden. The bombing started a firestorm in which tens of thousands of civilians were killed, and the cultur...

Finland’s Winter War from 2015-02-10T08:50

In the early months of 1940, Finland was in a desperate fight for survival against the might of the Soviet Union. Hear from Finnish veteran, Antti Henttonen, who was 17 when he joined up. He surviv...

Auschwitz Train Escape from 2015-01-27T08:50

In 1943, a group of Belgian Jews escaped from a train bound for the gas chambers at Auschwitz. In the only incident of its kind, they were helped by members of the Belgian resistance. Simon Gronow...

The Mystery of Raoul Wallenberg from 2015-01-16T08:50

The Swedish diplomat, Raoul Wallenberg, saved tens of thousands of Jews from the Nazis in Hungary, but he was taken into Soviet custody in January 1945 and disappeared. His fate remains a mystery. ...

The Battle of the Bulge from 2014-12-26T08:50

Fought during the winter months of 1944, it was the last major German attack on the Western Allies in World War II. Witness speaks to Keith Davis, an American survivor of the Battle of the Bulge. ...

Sabotage of Nazi Nuclear Programme from 2014-10-06T07:00

In October 1942 Norwegian commandos began a series of raids on a heavy water plant in German-occupied Norway. They had to destroy it in order to stop the Nazis from developing an atomic weapon. Jo...

Surviving Auschwitz from 2014-09-03T08:00

Kitty Hart-Moxon and her mother were sent to the Nazis' most notorious death camp in April 1943. More than a million people died in Auschwitz. Kitty tells Witness how she and others survived. Phot...

Freckleton Air Disaster from 2014-08-22T08:00

In August 1944, a US Air Force plane crashed into a village, Freckleton, in northwest England, killing 61 people. More than half the victims were children attending the local primary school. Surviv...

The Liberation of Paris from 2014-08-19T08:00

In August 1944, French and US forces freed Paris from German occupation. The liberators were met by crowds of celebrating Parisians. Listen to reports of some of the war correspondents who arrived ...

Marooned in Stalin's Russia from 2014-08-11T08:00

At the start of the Second World War hundreds of thousands of Polish civilians were imprisoned in the Soviet Union following the occupation of their country by the USSR. But in August 1941, after ...

Japanese Prisoner Breakout from 2014-08-05T06:50

In the early hours of 5 August 1944, hundreds of Japanese prisoners of war being held near the Australian town of Cowra staged the largest breakout of World War Two. Hear oral history accounts of t...

The Warsaw Uprising from 2014-08-01T08:00

On 1 August 1944, resistance fighters in the Polish capital rose up against German occupying forces. The uprising lasted for 63 days and some 200,000 people were killed - the city itself was largel...

The Plot to Kill Hitler from 2014-07-18T06:50

German army officer, Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg attempted to kill Adolf Hitler by planting a briefcase bomb in a meeting at Hitler's headquarters on 20 July, 1944. The attack was ...

'Lidice Shall Die' from 2014-06-25T07:50

In June 1942 the village of Lidice in German-occupied Czechoslovakia was completely destroyed in retaliation for the assassination of a top ranking Nazi. Adolf Hitler was so outraged by the murder ...

Fleeing Hitler on the St Louis from 2014-05-13T08:00

In May 1939 more than 900 Jews, many of them young children, fled Nazi Germany aboard a luxury cruise liner. They were trying to get to Cuba and the USA, but the ship was turned away in Havana and ...

The Death of Mussolini from 2014-04-29T16:37

In April 1945, thousands of Italians crowded into a Milan square to see the body of the wartime fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini. He, his mistress and his close associates had been shot by partis...

The True Story of "Whisky Galore" from 2014-02-18T18:20

In February 1941, a ship carrying nearly 30,000 cases of whisky was wrecked off the Scottish island of Eriskay in the Outer Hebrides. The islanders began to salvage the bottles from the wreck - ...

The Buildup to World War Two from 2014-02-10T09:00

In 1939 tension was growing in Europe, over Nazi Germany's expansionist plans. One young British camerman headed to Danzig (now Gdansk) to film what happened next. His name was Douglas Slocomb...

War Brides from 2014-02-06T09:00

In February 1946 the first 'war brides' ship sailed from the UK to Canada reuniting women with the foreign husbands they'd married while serving in the UK during World War Two. Witness speaks to...

Colossus: the World's First Electronic Computer from 2014-02-05T08:59

In February 1944, the world's first electronic computer began attacking encrypted Nazi messages, from the secret British codebreaking centre at Bletchley Park. Hear from one of the engineers tas...

WW2, the Holocaust and Rome from 2014-01-27T08:48

In 1943, Rome's Jewish citizens were promised that if they gave gold to the Nazis, they would escape deportation. Despite handing over 50kg of gold - more than 1,500 of the city's Jews were rou...

The Minnesota Starvation Experiment from 2014-01-20T09:00

During World War Two conscientious objectors could volunteer for medical experiments. Hear the story of one young American who had refused to fight, but was prepared to starve for his country. ...

Lord Haw Haw - Britain's Most Hated WW2 Traitor from 2014-01-03T09:00

On the 3rd of January 1946 Britain's most famous wartime traitor was hanged. His name was William Joyce but he was better known as Lord Haw Haw. Throughout WW2 he broadcast Nazi propaganda from ...

Prison Camp in WW2 Manila, Philippines from 2013-12-27T08:50

Thousands of foreign civilians were interned in camps when Japanese troops occupied the Philippines in World War II. Many of the inmates suffered from acute malnutrition. We hear the story of on...

The Tehran Conference of World War Two from 2013-11-28T09:00

In November 1943, Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill all met together for the first time to discuss the progress of World War Two. The meeting was held in Tehran over four days.

(Photo: Josep...

Degenerate Art and the Nazis from 2013-11-04T07:50

In 1937, Hitler and the Nazi party organised a huge exhibition of modern art in Munich. It was designed to ridicule works of art which they disapproved of - they called it Degenerate Art. It we...

Tokyo Rose - The Most Hated Woman in America from 2013-10-29T10:50

In 1949, Iva Toguri, a Japanese-American woman, was wrongly convicted for making propaganda broadcasts on behalf of Japan during the Second World War. She was accused of being the infamous radio...

Escape from Sobibor Death Camp from 2013-10-14T08:00

Hundreds of Jewish slave labourers in a Nazi death camp staged a revolt and escaped in October 1943.

Many were caught and shot. Around 50 made it to the end of the war.

Listen to th...

Danish Jews Escape the Holocaust from 2013-10-08T09:28

In October 1943, at the height of the Second World War, most of the Jews in Denmark evaded Nazi plans to send them to death camps. They were warned about a planned roundup by a German diplomat. ...

African Troops During WWII from 2013-10-01T12:00

During World War II, African soldiers were a vital part of the Allied forces. Many of them were sent to Burma as reinforcements for the British troops there. Hear just some of their memories - ...

Appeasement from 2013-09-30T06:50

On September 30th 1938, Neville Chamberlain returned from negotiations with Hitler promising "peace in our time". He had agreed for Hitler to take over the Sudetenland in western Czechoslovakia,...

Special Operations Executive from 2013-09-05T09:05

In World War II , Britain set up a secret organisation which waged war in Nazi occupied Europe. Noreen Riols, a former member of SOE, who helped train the agents, recounts her experiences in Chu...

Scientists Flee Nazi Germany from 2013-08-13T08:00

The early 20th Century was a golden age for physics with pioneers such as Max Born, Robert Oppenheimer and Werner Heisenberg working together at Gottingen University in Germany. But the rise of ...

Bombing of Nagasaki from 2013-08-09T07:00

In 1945, the allies dropped an atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Nagasaki. The explosion was bigger than the blast at Hiroshima three days earlier and killed 70,000 people. Louise Hidalgo in...

The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis from 2013-07-30T07:00

In the last days of World War II, an American warship, the USS Indianapolis, was torpedoed in the Pacific. For days, no one came to the survivors' rescue. Left adrift in shark-infested waters, h...

The Death of Jean Moulin from 2013-07-08T07:50

On July 8 1943, at the height of World War Two, the leader of the French Resistance was killed by German forces. Hear from Daniel Cordier who worked alongside Jean Moulin as his radio operator ...

Dambusters from 2013-05-17T08:00

In 1943, the Royal Air Force attacked a set of dams in Germany's Ruhr valley which were considered indestructible. Flying low and at night, the crews used special bouncing bombs to bring down tw...

The Arctic Convoys from 2013-05-10T06:50

The story of Jack Humble, whose ship was torpedoed while escorting a convoy inside the Arctic Circle. From 1941-45, Allied sailors and ships battled storms, bombers and U-boats to ferry war supp...

The death of Hitler from 2013-04-30T12:00

On April 30th 1945 as Red Army soldiers closed in on the German capital Berlin, Adolf Hitler killed himself. But first he married his lover Eva Braun, and dictated his will. Hear from one of the...

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising from 2013-04-19T07:50

In 1943, a few hundred Jewish fighters rose up against the German army as it began its final push to erase all traces of Jewish life in the Polish capital. Krystyna Budnicka is one of the very ...

The Guinea Pig Club from 2013-04-10T08:00

How severely burnt Second World War airmen learnt to overcome their terrible injuries.

They were all patients of the revolutionary plastic surgeon, Sir Archibald McIndoe at a specialist bu...

The Bethnal Green tube disaster from 2013-03-01T09:00

It's 70 years since 173 people were crushed to death at an air-raid shelter in east London during World War II. They were killed as they sought refuge in an underground train station. Sixty-two ...

The fall of Singapore from 2013-02-14T09:38

In February 1942 Britain's stronghold in South East Asia fell to the Japanese. Tens of thousands of Commonwealth soldiers were taken prisoner. They were sent to prison camps across the region an...

The battle of Stalingrad from 2013-02-01T09:00

It is 70 years since German troops lost their battle to take the Soviet industrial city. They had spent a harsh Russian winter fighting from house to house on starvation rations. Eventually the...

Hitler's will from 2013-01-24T10:19

In January 1946 a young woman was given Hitler's will to translate into English. She had been sent to post-war Germany as part of the occupying forces. It was the culmination of her work for the...

The Hunger Winter from 2013-01-22T09:00

At the end of World War Two, millions of people in the west of Nazi-occupied Netherlands faced starvation.

The lucky ones survived on watery bread, potato peel or tulip bulbs.

Witnes...

Tito on Vis from 2013-01-09T09:50

In 1944, in the middle of World War Two, the Yugoslav partisan leader found sanctuary on a tiny island in the Adriatic Sea. His resistance to German occupation had made him a target and he was ...

The M Room from 2012-12-17T09:00

How exiles from the Nazis helped British intelligence listen in on German prisoners-of-war.

Ninety-three-year-old Fritz Lustig, a refugee from Nazi Germany, is one of the last surviving me...

Edgar Feuchtwanger: Adolf Hitler's Neighbour from 2012-11-09T09:00

The memories of a German Jew who grew up across the street from Adolf Hitler. As a young boy, Edgar Feuchtwanger watched the comings and goings at the Nazi leader's luxury flat.

Edgar's fa...

German refugees in post-war Europe from 2012-10-01T09:00

At the end of World War Two, many ethnic Germans in Central Europe were forced to leave their homes.

No longer welcome outside Germany they ended up in internment camps, sometimes for year...

A Polish odyssey from 2012-09-17T07:31

One girl's story of exile and soldiering during World War II.

Danuta Maczka was just 14 when her family was sent to Siberia in 1940.

By the time she was 16 she had been recruited int...

US Occupation of Japan from 2012-08-14T08:00

For six years following the end of World War II in August 1945, Japan was occupied by the US.

Akira Iriye was ten years old at the time and vividly remembers the surrender of his country ...

Bomber Command from 2012-06-29T14:07

During World War II, Allied bombing raids brought death and destruction to German cities.

A controversial memorial to the British aircrew who flew on bombing missions is being unveiled in ...

Anne Frank's Diary from 2012-06-25T07:41

In June 1947 the diary of Anne Frank was published for the very first time.

Witness has been speaking to her first cousin and closest surviving relative, 87-year-old Buddy Elias.

(Ph...

France under Nazi occupation from 2012-06-21T07:00

In June 1940, France surrendered to Nazi Germany, leading to four years of occupation and the rule of a puppet government led by Marshal Petain.

Henriette Dodd lived through the occupation...

The Psychiatrist and Rudolf Hess from 2012-05-09T09:00

In 1941, the deputy fuhrer, Rudolf Hess, flew out of Nazi Germany and landed in Scotland.

Keen to study the psychology of the Nazi leadership, the British government sent a psychiatrist ca...

World War II concerts from 2012-03-13T09:08

Throughout World War II, Myra Hess organised concerts in London's National Gallery.

The lunchtime performances were intended to raise morale in the capital.

Many other concert venues...

Japanese internment from 2012-02-17T11:30

In February 1942 all Japanese Americans were ordered to internment camps.

They were viewed as a threat to US security during World War II.

Photo: A Japanese American family preparing...

The rise of Hitler from 2012-01-25T09:09

On January 25 1933 the last legal communist march was held in Berlin.

Just a few days later Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany.

Soon the Communist Party was banned and the Naz...

The Wannsee conference from 2012-01-20T09:00

It is 70 years since senior Nazi officials met to plan the killing of European Jews.

The meeting was organised by Reinhardt Heydrich.

It took place in a villa in a prosperous suburb ...

The sinking of the Scharnhorst from 2011-12-26T09:10

She was one of Germany's greatest battleships during World War II.

But on Boxing Day 1943 she was sunk in the freezing waters of the Arctic.

Norman Scarth is a Witness listener who ...

The Manhattan Project from 2011-10-05T08:00

Seventy years ago the American president Franklin Roosevelt gave the go-ahead to the project to develop the world's first atomic bomb. Young scientist Bill Wilcox helped make the bomb.

Babi Yar from 2011-09-29T08:06

On 29 September 1941, the organised massacre of Ukrainian Jews began.

In the capital Kiev, most of them were taken to a place called Babi Yar, and shot.

Raissa Maistrenko escaped th...

Translator at Nuremberg from 2011-09-14T08:07

The trials of senior Nazis began in the autumn of 1945.

Howard Triest was a German Jew who acted as a translator during their questioning.

Photo: Getty Images

The Scoop of the Century from 2011-09-02T09:00

The scoop of the century on the eve of World War II.

How a young British reporter witnessed the German military build-up just days before the invasion of Poland in 1939.

We hear Cl...

Battle of Britain from 2011-07-13T09:30

Through the BBC's Archive footage Alan Johnston pieces together the story of a Battle of Britain fighter pilot who was shot down during a dogfight and badly burnt before parachuting from his str...

Operation Barbarossa from 2011-06-22T09:30

A frontline Soviet officer tells of what he saw the night that Hitler ordered Operation Barbarossa - Germany's invasion of the USSR.

Australian evacuee from 2011-06-20T08:20

During World War II, many British children were sent away from the cities to escape German bombs.

Most went to the countryside but some went as far away as Australia.

Helen Cuthbert ...

Italian internees from 2011-06-10T08:14

When Italy joined World War II in June 1940, British-Italian men were rounded up and interned.

Joe Pieri was just 21 years old and living in Glasgow when he was arrested and sent to a pris...

Retreat from Dunkirk from 2011-06-02T09:30

A British soldier tells us of one extraordinary day on the beaches of 1940 Dunkirk during World War II.

We hear of how he managed to work his way through the chaos and constant danger, an...

The fall of Berlin from 2011-05-16T08:15

The Red Army took control of the German capital Berlin, in May 1945.

The Soviet soldiers had a terrifying reputation and civilians in their path feared looting and violence.

One Germ...

Victory in Europe Day from 2011-05-06T08:29

On May 8 1945, Winston Churchill announced the end of the war in Europe.

It meant defeat for Germany, but great rejoicing in Britain.

One man whose joy was captured on camera that da...

The Krakow Ghetto from 2011-03-02T09:33

The city of Krakow in Poland was home to a large Jewish community before World War II.

But with the arrival of the Nazis many of its Jews were deported, or fled. Then in 1941 a Jewish ghe...

The siege of Leningrad from 2011-01-28T09:23

When Leningrad was cut off from the rest of Russia by German troops during World War Two, one third of its population died.

Some were killed in the fighting, but most died of hunger.

Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff from 2011-01-25T09:19

Horst Woit was just 10 years old when he and his mother boarded a ship in the hope of escaping Russian forces towards the end of World War II. He recalls the night that ship - the Wilhelm Gustlo...

Kindertransport - Oliver's story from 2011-01-17T09:36

Over 10,000 Jewish children were brought to Britain from Nazi Europe in the months leading up to World War II.

They travelled on trains which became known as the kindertransports.

L...

The Great Escape from 2010-12-28T09:07

The film, The Great Escape, has become an all-time favourite. It is about a mass breakout from a German prison camp during World War 2. Flight Lieutenant Ken Rees, who died in August 2014, took par...

Pearl Harbour from 2010-12-07T09:19

When Japanese bombers and fighter planes attacked the US fleet in the Pacific it came as a huge surprise to many. Listen to some archive recordings from the time.

Kindertransports from 2010-12-03T09:30

The first trains full of Jewish children left Berlin in early December - heading for sanctuary in Britain. The Kindertransports only stopped with the outbreak of war in September 1939. They he...