Poet and soldier, misanthrope and philosopher, Frederick the Great was a contradictory, almost unfathomable, man. His conquests made him one of the most formidable and feared leaders of his era. But as a patron of artists and intellectuals, Frederick recreated Berlin as one of the continent's grea[...]

When Hitlers government collapsed in 1945, Germany was immediately divided up under the control of the Allied Powers and the Soviets. A nation in tatters, in many places literally flattened by bombs, was suddenly subjected to brutal occupation by vengeful victors. According to recent estimates, as[...]

In 1945, Josef Stalin, who had never been able to shake off the nightmare of Adolf Hitler, refused to believe that the dictator had committed suicide. He ordered his secret police, the NKVD, to explore Hitlers private life, and to clarify the circumstances of his death. For months the NKVD interro[...]