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# Rupert Colley

Novelist and founder of History In An Hour

## Sitemaps

- [XML Sitemap](https://rupertcolley.com/sitemap.xml): Contains all public & indexable URLs for this website.

## Posts

- [History Blog](https://rupertcolley.com/?page_id=384)
- [Code Name Pauline – book review](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/06/24/code-name-pauline-book-review/) - Born in Paris to English parents, Pearl Witherington Cornioley was an extraordinary SOE agent who, at one point during World War Two, had over 3,000 fighters under her command. In 1995, her memoirs were published in France. Now, eighteen years later, as Code Name Pauline: Memoirs of a World War II Special Agent, they are
- [900 Days: the Myth and Reality of the Leningrad Blockade](https://rupertcolley.com/2012/10/15/900-days-the-myth-and-reality-of-the-leningrad-blockade/) - Four years in the making, Jessica Gorter’s film, 900 Days: the Myth and Reality of the Leningrad Blockade, considers how the Siege of Leningrad was acknowledged in the Soviet Union during the post-war years and how, seventy years on, it’s remembered by those who lived through it. Over twenty-nine months, between 1941 and 1944, German forces encircled the
- [Adolf Eichmann – a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/03/19/adolf-eichmann-a-brief-biography/) - On 31 May 1962, a man who seemed from the outside quite an ordinary person, even banal, was hanged in Ramla prison in Israel. It was, and still is, the only time the Israel state has executed a person. Tall, slim, bespectacled and with a receding hairline, his external persona was indeed very mundane but this was no ordinary
- [Canned goods: World War Two’s First Death](https://rupertcolley.com/2018/11/20/canned-goods-world-war-twos-first-death/) - World War Two began with a single death; a death that Hitler would use as the justification for going to war and invading Poland. The victim’s name, largely forgotten to history, was Franciszek (or Franz) Honiok. Eastward ambition The signing of the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact on 23 August 1939 had been the penultimate piece in
- [The Zong Massacre - a brief history](https://rupertcolley.com/2014/11/25/the-zong-massacre-a-brief-history/) - On 29 November 1781, Captain Luke Collingwood of the British ship, Zong, ordered one-third of his cargo to be thrown overboard. That cargo was human – 133 African slaves bound for Jamaica. His motive – to collect the insurance. The case was brought to court – not for murder, but against the insurers who refused to pay up.
- [The Birth of Joseph Stalin](https://rupertcolley.com/2014/12/18/the-birth-of-joseph-stalin/) - On 18 December 1878, in the town of Gori, Georgia, was born one history’s greatest tyrants, Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, better known to history by his adopted name – Stalin, ‘man of steel’. For reasons that remain a mystery, Joseph Stalin always maintained he was born on 21 December 1879 and it was this date that
- [Ping Pong Diplomacy - a summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/04/10/ping-pong-diplomacy-a-summary/) - On 10 April 1971, the simple game of table tennis marked the beginning of a thaw in the diplomatic freeze that had existed between the US and China for over 20 years. The occasion became known as ping-pong diplomacy. The US ping-pong team was in Nagoya, Japan, for the 31st World Table Tennis Championships, and following
- [Victor Emmanuel III – a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/12/28/victor-emmanuel-iii-a-brief-biography/) - On 29 July 1900, the king of Italy, Umberto I, was assassinated. The throne passed to his 30-year-old son, who, as Victor Emmanuel III, would reign until 1946, a period which saw both world wars and the rise and fall of Benito Mussolini’s fascists. Born in Naples on 11 November 1869, the future king was
- [The Rescue of Mussolini](https://rupertcolley.com/2018/09/12/rescue-of-mussolini/) - The rescue of Mussolini: on 12 September 1943, in an audacious expedition, the Italian fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, was rescued from imprisonment by a group of German commandoes. Background The war was not going well for Italy and Mussolini. Campaigns against Greece and Albania had ended in ignoble defeat and things were going poorly for Italian
- [The Execution of of Hideki Tojo](https://rupertcolley.com/2014/12/23/the-execution-of-of-hideki-tojo/) - On 23 December 1948, former prime minister of Japan, Hideki Tojo, was executed for war crimes. Born in Tokyo on 30 December 1884, Hideki Tojo, the son of a general, was brought up in a military environment that held little regard for politicians or civilians. An admirer of Adolf Hitler, Tojo advocated closer ties between Japan
- [Nadezhda Alliluyeva, Stalin's second wife - a summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/09/22/nadezhda-alliluyeva-stalins-second-wife-a-summary/) - Joseph Stalin married twice. His first wife, Ekaterina Svanidze, died in December 1907, aged 22, from typhus. His second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, shot herself and died on 9 November 1932, aged 31. As a two-year-old in 1903, Nadezhda, or Nadya, Alliluyeva was reputedly saved from drowning by the visiting 25-year-old Stalin. When staying in St
- [Into the Jaws of Death: The True Story of the Legendary Raid on Saint-Nazaire – book review](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/03/28/saint-nazaire-raid-summary/) - ‘It was one of those enterprises which could be attempted only because in the eyes of the enemy it was absolutely impossible.’ Lord Louis Mountbatten, Chief of Combined Operations, describing the Second World War raid on Saint-Nazaire. On 28 March 1942, 621 men of the Royal Navy and British Commandos attacked the port of Saint-Nazaire in occupied
- [Charles de Gaulle's 'Appeal of 18 June' speech - Text](https://rupertcolley.com/2020/06/18/charles-de-gaulles-appeal-of-18-june-speech/) - The leaders who, for many years, have been at the head of the French armies have formed a government. This government, alleging the defeat of our armies, has made contact with the enemy in order to stop the fighting. It is true, we were, we are, overwhelmed by the mechanical, ground and air forces of
- [Fritz Haber and WWI Gas Warfare](https://rupertcolley.com/2014/12/09/fritz-haber-and-wwi-gas-warfare/) - On 22 April 1915, during the Second Battle of Ypres, French and Algerian soldiers, fighting together, noticed a strange yellow-grey-coloured cloud floating across no man’s land in their direction. As it descended over them, many collapsed, coughing and wheezing, gasping for air, frothing at the mouth. Men nearby watched as their colleagues fell to the
- [Karl Lody – a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/01/20/karl-lody-a-brief-biography/) - Karl Lody was a German spy and the first to be executed in Britain during the First World War. Born in Berlin on 20 January 1877, Karl Hans Lody spoke perfect English with an American accent, having been married to an American and living in Nebraska. Having obtained a US passport under the name Charles
- [Charles de Gaulle's Appeal of 18 June 1940: a summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/06/18/charles-de-gaulles-appeal-of-18-june-1940-a-summary/) - Charles de Gaulle’s L’Appel du 18 Juin, the ‘Appeal of 18 June’, is of huge symbolic importance for the French. Former French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, once said “We (the French) are all children of the 18 June”. Here, below, is a brief resume of the fall of France and the first of Charles de Gaulle’s many broadcasts from the
- [The Prague Spring – an introduction](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/01/19/the-prague-spring-an-introduction/) - On the night of 20-21 August 1968, Soviet troops appeared in Czechoslovakia and on the streets of Prague to quell the growing movement of liberalisation, a movement known as the ‘Prague Spring’. Here, we summarize the events of the Prague Spring, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and its aftermath. Socialism with a Human Face On 5 January 1968,
- [Tanya Savicheva - a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/01/23/tanya-savicheva-a-brief-biography/) - Tanya Savicheva died near her hometown of Leningrad on 1 July 1944, aged only 14. Who was Tanya Savicheva? The name in Russia is what Anne Frank is to the West – a young innocent victim of World War Two, who left behind a small but lasting legacy. But whereas Anne’s diary is a carefully kept journal over a period of two
- [A Stranger in My Own Country: The 1944 Prison Diary by Hans Fallada - review](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/07/21/a-stranger-in-my-own-country-hans-fallada-review/) - During the 1930s and 1940s, Hans Fallada was one of the most famous writers in Germany. In 2009, over sixty years after his death, his reputation was resurrected in the English-speaking world with the first English translation of his bleak anti-Nazi masterpiece, Alone in Berlin. In 1944, following an altercation involving a pistol with his
- [The Sharpeville Massacre – a brief outline](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/03/21/the-sharpeville-massacre-a-brief-outline/) - The Sharpeville Massacre of 21 March 1960, which left 69 unarmed black South Africans dead and more than 180 injured, drew the world’s attention to the evil of the apartheid system practiced within South Africa. Pass Laws The protest at Sharpeville, a black township about forty miles south of Johannesburg, on 21 March 1960 was
- [The Sinking of the Bismarck - a summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/05/27/the-sinking-of-the-bismarck-a-summary/) - Named after the 19th-century German chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, the Bismarck had been launched in February 1939 by the chancellor’s great-granddaughter. The ship was an impressive sight – one-sixth of a mile long and 120 feet wide. British writer and broadcaster, Ludovic Kennedy (1919-2009), wrote of the Bismarck: “There had never been a warship like
- [The Berlin Blockade and Berlin Airlift – a brief summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/05/12/the-berlin-blockade-and-berlin-airlift-a-brief-summary/) - 24 June 1948 saw the start of the Berlin Blockade, which, as a direct consequence, led to the Berlin Airlift. But what were these two events that were so pivotal in the early post-war years of the Cold War? Misery and want “The seeds of totalitarian regimes,” said US president, Harry S. Truman, a year earlier
- [Ekaterina Svanidze - Stalin's first wife](https://rupertcolley.com/2014/12/05/ekaterina-svanidze-biography/) - Alexander Svanidze, an old school friend of Stalin’s and a fellow revolutionary, introduced the 28-year-old future dictator to his sister, Ekaterina Svanidze. Nicknamed Kato, Ekaterina was born in Georgia on 2 April 1885. The two fell for each other and decided to get married. Respecting her devoutness, Stalin put aside his atheism and the couple were
- [Joseph McCarthy - a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/05/02/joseph-mccarthy-a-brief-biography/) - Aggressive, intimidating, and unfazed by the truth, Joe McCarthy single-handedly whipped 1950s USA into a frenzy of anti-communist fear and paranoia. It was near the beginning of the Cold War: the Soviet Union had surged ahead of America in the arms race, Chairman Mao had not long come to power in China, and Americans everywhere
- [Ronald Reagan and The Cold War: an introduction](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/02/06/ronald-reagan-and-the-cold-war-an-introduction/) - Born 6 February 1911, Ronald Reagan was only a few days short of his seventieth birthday when, on 20 January 1981, he became the fortieth and oldest president in US history. The period of détente, the easing of East-West relations, particularly between the US and the Soviet Union, was drawing to a close amid increasing Cold
- [Richard Nixon - brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/01/09/richard-nixon-brief-biography/) - The 37th president of the US, Richard Milhous Nixon remains the only US president to have resigned from office. Born the second of five sons to Quaker parents in California on 9 January 1913, Richard Nixon practised law from 1937 to 1942 and then served in the US Navy in the Pacific during World War Two,
- [The Vellore Mutiny – a brief outline](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/07/10/the-vellore-mutiny-a-brief-outline/) - Fifty-one years before the outbreak of the year-long ‘Indian Mutiny’, took place another act of defiance against British rule in India. Lasting but a few hours, the Vellore Mutiny of 10 July 1806 was a mere foretaste of 1857. But the grievances that led to the brief uprising were very much the same as the
- [Vasily Stalin – a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/03/19/vasily-stalin-a-brief-biography/) - On 21 March 1921, Joseph Stalin’s second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, gave birth to Yasily Stalin, or Vasily Dzhugashvili. Their second child, Svetlana, was born five years later. On 9 November 1932, Nadezhda, suffering from depression, shot herself. Naturally, her death affected both children who, from then on, were brought up by a succession of nannies and security guards
- [The Battle of Kursk – an outline](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/07/05/the-battle-of-kursk-an-outline/) - The Battle of Kursk, Germany’s last grand offensive on the Eastern Front and the largest ever tank battle the world’s ever seen, began on 5 July 1943. The industrial city of Kursk, 320 miles south of Moscow, had been captured by the Germans in November 1941, during the early stages of the Nazi-Soviet war, and
- [Goebbels and the not-so-great German novel](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/05/01/goebbels-and-the-not-so-great-german-novel/) - In 1923, the future Nazi minister for propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, wrote a novel. Eighty years later, a carbon copy bearing the author’s corrections and amendments, came up for auction in Connecticut. 158 pages long, Michael Voormann: A Man’s Fate in the Pages of a Diary is written as a diary and is both autobiographical and a tribute
- [Dmitri Bystrolyotov - Stalin’s Romeo Spy](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/01/04/dmitri-bystrolyotov-stalins-romeo-spy/) - Charming, dashing and aristocratic, Dmitri Bystrolyotov’s life reads like a far-fetched spy thriller. Addicted to danger, Bystrolyotov seduced French, British and German women procuring for Joseph Stalin vital information in the years leading up to the war, including, amazingly, Hitler’s plans for rearmament. He was, without question, Stalin’s most daring and successful spy. then, in 1938, at
- [Rosa Parks – 10 things…](https://rupertcolley.com/2014/12/01/rosa-parks-10-things/) - This article was originally published in the Huffington Post. But here you can read it without all the distracting ads. 1. Parks had been thrown off the bus a decade earlier by the same bus driver – for refusing to pay in the front and go around to the back to board. She had avoided that
- [The Montgomery Bus Boycott - a brief history](https://rupertcolley.com/2014/11/25/the-montgomery-bus-boycott-a-brief-history/) - On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old African American seamstress, seated in a segregated bus, refused to give up her seat to a white man. It sparked the 13-month Montgomery Bus Boycott and resulted in an early and significant victory for the Civil Rights movement. It brought to national attention a 26-year-old recently
- [The Dieppe Raid – a summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/08/19/the-dieppe-raid-summary/) - In August 1942, Winston Churchill, Great Britain’s wartime prime minister, flew to Moscow and there met for the first time the Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin. Fourteen months before, on 22 June 1941, Hitler had launched Operation Barbarossa, Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, the largest military invasion ever conducted. Almost immediately, Stalin was urging Churchill to open a second front
- [The Fall of France – an outline](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/06/22/the-fall-of-france-an-outline/) - On 11 November 1918, the French and British allies accepted Germany’s surrender and, between them, signed the armistice that ended the First World War. The signing took place in a railway carriage in the middle of the picturesque woods of Compiègne, fifty miles north-east of Paris. The humiliation of that event ran deep into the
- [Indian Mutiny – a brief outline](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/05/10/indian-mutiny-a-brief-outline/) - On 10 May 1857, the Indian Mutiny, as it became known, erupted in the town of Meerut in northern India. Discontent among the native Indian soldiers, the sepoys, had been simmering for months if not decades but the violence, when it came, took the British completely by surprise. So, what were the causes of the
- [Vladimir Lenin – a brief introduction](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/04/22/vladimir-lenin-a-brief-introduction/) - Vladimir Lenin was born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov on 22 April 1870 in the town of Simbirsk (renamed Ulyanovsk in Lenin’s honour following his death in 1924). The third of six children, Lenin was born into a middle-class family, his father being an inspector of primary schools, a fact Lenin never tried to hide. In 1887,
- [The Wannsee Conference – an introduction](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/01/20/the-wannsee-conference-an-introduction/) - On 20 January 1942 took place one of the most notorious meetings in history. In a grand villa on the picturesque banks of Berlin’s Lake Wannsee, met fifteen high-ranking Nazis. Chaired by the chief of the security police, 37-year-old Reinhard Heydrich, the fifteen men represented various agencies of the Nazi apparatus. ‘Final Solution of the
- [Vera Inber – Leningrad Siege Diarist](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/07/10/vera-inber-leningrad-siege-diarist/) - Born 10 July 1890, Vera Inber was a Soviet poet and writer whose greatest legacy, Leningrad Diary, described the daily deprivations suffered by the city during the 900-day siege of 1941 – 1944. Vera Inber’s father, the owner of a publishing house, was an older cousin to the future Bolshevik revolutionary, Leon Trotsky. As a
- [Jan Palach – a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/01/19/jan-palach-a-brief-biography/) - On 16 January 1969, a 20-year-old Czechoslovakian student, Jan Palach, staged a one-man protest on Prague’s Wenceslas Square by dousing himself in petrol then setting himself on fire. Three days later, on 19 January, he died of his injuries. Palach’s protest was against Czechoslovakia’s authoritarian rule, re-imposed after the brief but significant period of liberalization, the Prague
- [Gallipoli - a brief outline](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/04/25/gallipoli-a-brief-outline/) - In November 1914, the Ottoman Empire, entered the war on the side of the Central Powers and on Christmas Day went on the offensive against the Russians, launching an attack through the Caucasus. Russia’s Tsar Nicholas II sent an appeal to Britain, asking for a diversionary attack that would ease the pressure on Russia. From this came the
- [Gavrilo Princip – a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/04/28/gavrilo-princip-a-brief-biography/) - In the annals of notoriety, the name Gavrilo Princip should perhaps rank higher than it does. For this 19-year-old Serb committed a crime that, without overestimating the fact, set the agenda for the whole of the twentieth century. Princip was the man who shot and killed the heir to the Austrian-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Exactly
- [Franz Ferdinand - a summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2014/12/18/franz-ferdinand-a-summary/) - On Sunday, 28 June 1914, the 50-year-old heir to the Austrian-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Countess Sophie, paid an official visit to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, to inspect troops of the Austrian-Hungarian army. And it was the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and his wife on this day in this city that
- [Winston Churchill and the First World War](https://rupertcolley.com/2014/11/30/winston-churchill-and-the-first-world-war/) - Winston Churchill rather enjoyed war. In July 1914, as Britain prepared for the oncoming catrastrophe, Churchill, at the time the First Lord of the Admiralty, wrote to his wife, ‘I am interested, geared up and happy. Is it not horrible to be built like that?’ And in 1916, in a letter to David Lloyd George’s
- [The Tomb of the Unknown Warrior - a summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/11/11/the-tomb-of-the-unknown-warrior-a-summary/) - On 11 November 1920, two years after the armistice that ended the First World War, the Unknown Warrior was buried in London’s Westminster Abbey in a deeply sombre ceremony that caught the mood of a nation, still reeling in grief following four years of war. In 1916, the vicar of Margate in Kent, the Reverend
- [The Battle of the Somme - a brief outline](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/07/01/the-battle-of-the-somme-a-brief-outline/) - Within the collective British and Commonwealth psyche, no battle epitomizes the futility of war as much as the Battle of the Somme. Almost 20,000 men were killed on the first day, 1 July 1916, alone. It started with the usual preliminary bombardment. Lasting seven days, and involving 1,350 guns and 52,000 tonnes of explosives fired
- [The Enabling Act – a brief outline](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/03/23/the-enabling-act-a-brief-outline/) - On 23 March 1933, the German Reichstag voted in the Enabling Act, allowing Hitler to rip up the constitution. He’d been in power less than two months. On 30 January 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor within a coalition government, achieving what he had striven for since 1923 – power through legitimate means. The Reichstag Fire Barely a month
- [Hitler appointed Chancellor](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/01/30/hitler-appointed-chancellor/) - On 30 January 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. The supposed one thousand-year Reich had started. But it would be another nineteen months before Hitler achieved absolute power. 1932 Germany saw the rise of the Nazi party into a prominent political force. The Weimar government had failed its people and, following the worldwide depression,
- [Hermann Goring - brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/01/12/hermann-goring-brief-biography/) - Born in Bavaria, 12 January 1893, to a well-to-do Prussian family, Hermann Goring fancied himself as a cut above the rest, a cultured man, fond of fine living, the arts and women. Indeed, as a young fighter pilot during the First World War, Goring cut a dashing figure and in June 1918, won the Pour le
- [Juan Pujol Garcia – brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/02/14/juan-pujol-garcia-brief-biography/) - Juan Pujol Garcia was unique among Second World War agents – he was the only one to offer his services as a double agent as opposed to all others who had been captured and ‘turned’. Bespectacled, balding and timid, Pujol was not the image usually associated with a double agent, let alone Britain’s most effective one.
- [Lord Kitchener – a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/06/05/lord-kitchener-a-brief-biography/) - Field Marshal Lord Kitchener’s face and pointing finger proclaiming ‘Your country needs you’, often copied and mimicked, is one of the most recognizable posters of all time. Born 24 June 1850 in County Kerry, Ireland, Horatio Kitchener first saw active service with the French army during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 and, a decade later,
- [Douglas Haig - a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/01/29/douglas-haig-a-brief-biography/) - Douglas Haig, Britain’s First World War commander-in-chief from December 1915 to the end of the war, is remembered as the archetypal ‘donkey’ leading ‘lions’ to their death by the thousands. But, almost a century on, is this a fair judgement? Born in Edinburgh, on 19 June 1861, Douglas Haig was the eleventh son of a
- [John French – a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/05/22/john-french-a-brief-biography/) - John French spent much of his early military career, like many of his contemporaries, in Africa and India. He was part of the failed 1884/5 mission to relieve General Gordon in Sudan, and from 1891 served in India. In India French first met his future rival, Douglas Haig, then a captain. Indeed, Haig later lent
- [The Hindenburg Disaster – a summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/05/06/the-hindenburg-disaster-a-summary/) - On 6 May 1937, a tragedy took place that, caught on film, haunted the American consciousness for decades. Built in Germany in 1935 the 800-foot long Zeppelin airship, the Hindenburg, was considered the height of sophisticated travel. It may only have travelled at 80 mph yet it still provided the fastest means of crossing the Atlantic – twice as
- [Pearl Harbor – a summary of the Day of Infamy](https://rupertcolley.com/2014/12/07/pearl-harbor-a-summary-of-the-day-of-infamy/) - How Japan’s hollow victory spelt the end for Hitler On 7 December 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on the US. In just two hours it destroyed a large part of the US fleet docked in Pearl Harbor and, in one stroke, forever destroyed US isolationism and made the conflict global. The US may have
- [Mikhail Gorbachev and the Cold War - a brief summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2016/03/02/mikhail-gorbachev-and-the-cold-war-a-brief-summary/) - Born 2 March 1931, Mikhail Gorbachev was the last leader of the Soviet Union. The Youngest First Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev was an up-and-coming star in the Communist Party and, following the death of Leonid Brezhnev in 1982, became a protégé of the new Party leader, Yuri Andropov. But on Andropov’s death in February 1984, the
- [The Black Hole of Calcutta – a brief outline](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/06/20/the-black-hole-of-calcutta-a-brief-outline/) - On 20 June 1756, 123 Britons perished in a tiny dungeon cell in the city of Calcutta. The incident, which soon became known as the Black Hole of Calcutta, illustrated only too well that the Indian race, when left without Britain’s civilizing influence, was barbaric in the extreme. In April 1756, the nawab (provincial governor) of Bengal died and
- [Admiral Byng – the Execution of a Scapegoat](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/03/14/admiral-byng-the-execution-of-a-scapegoat/) - John Byng was born on 29 October 1704 in Bedfordshire, England. One of fifteen children, John, like his father, Rear-Admiral Sir George Byng, joined the Royal Navy and by the age of 23 had reached the rank of captain. Until 1739, Byng was stationed around the uneventful Mediterranean. Then, perhaps due to his father’s influence, John
- [Galeazzo Ciano – brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/01/11/galeazzo-ciano-brief-biography/) - In 1930, the dashing and rich 27-year-old Galeazzo Ciano married Edda Mussolini, daughter to the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini. Six years later, he became Mussolini’s foreign minister. Yet, on 11 January 1944, on his father-in-law’s orders, he was executed. Galeazzo Ciano’s father had made a name for himself as an admiral during the First World War. An early
- [The first British soldier executed during World War One - Thomas Highgate](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/05/13/the-first-british-soldier-executed-during-world-war-one-thomas-highgate/) - On 5 September 1914, the first day of the Battle of Marne, Thomas Highgate, a 19-year-old British private, was found hiding in a barn dressed in civilian clothes. Highgate was tried by court-martial, convicted of desertion and, in the early hours of 8 September, was executed by firing squad. His was the first of 306
- [The Death of Hitler - a summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/04/30/the-death-of-hitler-a-summary/) - The death of Hitler: In January 1945, with the Soviet Red Army bearing down on Germany, Hitler left his HQ in East Prussia and moved back to Berlin and into the Reich Chancellery. A month later, he went underground into the Chancellery’s air-raid shelter, a cavern of dimly-lit rooms made of solid, high-quality concrete. Hitler’s
- [The Death of Prince Albert](https://rupertcolley.com/2014/12/14/the-death-of-prince-albert/) - The light is subdued in the Blue Room. He lies in his bed, plumped up with pillows. His breath is slow and laboured, his skin terribly white, his hair stuck down by sweat. Kneeling on the floor beside his bed, trembling, his wife – the queen. Holding his limp hand, she knows he is dying. Beside
- [Contacting the First World War dead – Arthur Conan Doyle and Spiritualism](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/05/22/arthur-conan-doyle-and-spiritualism/) - It is almost midnight. The only light emanates from a few candles placed around the room. In the middle of the drawing room is a round table adorned only with a pale linen cloth. Around it sits a couple and a companion. The man is in his fifties, barrel-chested with a long moustache. He holds his wife’s hands.
- [Georges Clemenceau – a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/09/28/georges-clemenceau-a-brief-biography/) - Nicknamed the Tiger for his fiery temperament, Georges Clemenceau was not averse to settling personal feuds by duel. He was anti-monarchy, anti-socialist and anti-Catholic. His father, Benjamin, who himself had been imprisoned for his republican views, was a doctor and although Clemenceau completed his medical studies, he didn’t take up the profession, being drawn instead
- [Battle of Verdun – a brief summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/02/21/battle-of-verdun-a-brief-summary/) - As 1914 drew to a close, the Western Front had become a permanent fixture of trenches stretching 400 miles from the English Channel to Switzerland. Stalemate ensued. A year later, the situation was no better. Each side looked for a ‘Big Push’ that would break the opposing line of defence and bring about victory. Rupert
- [Henri Philippe Petain -  a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/04/24/henri-philippe-petain-a-brief-biography/) - Few men over the last century can have experienced such a change of fortune as Philippe Pétain. During the First World War, Pétain was hailed as the ‘Saviour of Verdun’, helping the French keep the Germans at bay during the 1916 Battle of Verdun. In May 1917 he was made commander-in-chief of French forces. His first task was
- [Russia’s Bloody Sunday - a summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/01/22/russias-bloody-sunday-a-summary/) - On Sunday, 22 January 1905, (9 January Old Style) the workers of St Petersburg organised a peaceful demonstration to demand political and constitutional reform. 150,000 demonstrators, including whole families, led by an Orthodox priest, Father Georgi Gapon, marched through the city streets armed with a petition to be presented to the tsar, Nicholas II. Strike Although
- [The Italian Social Republic – an outline](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/04/25/the-italian-social-republic-an-outline/) - Proclaimed on 23 September 1943, the Italian Social Republic was a short-lived state headed by fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini. The war had been going badly for Mussolini’s Italy, so much so that a meeting of the Fascist Grand Council on 25 July 1943 voted to have Mussolini removed. One of those who voted against Mussolini
- [Kaiser Wilhelm II - brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/01/27/kaiser-wilhelm-ii-brief-biography/) - Arrogant, extremely vain, and always seeking praise, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany enjoyed a life of frivolity. His former chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, once remarked that the Kaiser considered every day as his birthday. Hot head Wilhelm II, King George V of Britain and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia were all cousins. George and Wilhelm were both
- [Max Schmeling - a summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2016/06/22/max-schmeling-summary/) - One of the most politically-charged sporting events took place in New York’s Yankee Stadium on 22 June 1938 – a boxing match between the then heavyweight champion of the world, Joe Louis, the ‘Brown Bomber’, and the German, Max Schmeling, the unwilling darling of the Nazi Party. Born in 1905, Max Schmeling had advanced through
- [Rudolph Hess – a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/04/26/rudolph-hess-a-brief-biography/) - One of the most bizarre incidences of the Second World War occurred on the 10th May 1941 – the appearance in Scotland of top-ranking Nazi, Rudolph Hess. Hitler and Rudolph Hess Hess was one of the original members of the Nazi Party, joining in 1920. Three years later he was involved in the failed Munich Putsch and,
- [Georgy Zhukov - a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2014/11/25/georgy-zhukov-a-brief-biography/) - Georgy Zhukov achieved fame as perhaps the most successful Soviet military commander of the Second World War. In the post-war Victory Parade in Moscow’s Red Square, Zhukov stole the show, inspecting the troops mounted on a white stallion. Adored by the public and respected by international opinion, Zhukov’s position was always going to be vulnerable
- [The Cleverest General: the Life and Death of Sir George Pomeroy Colley](https://rupertcolley.com/2016/02/27/sir-george-pomeroy-colley/) - When I was a child my parents had on their bookshelves an old red-bound nineteenth-century tome called The Life of Sir George Pomeroy Colley by one W.F.Butler, published in 1899. Sir George Pomeroy Colley was a Victorian general who met his death on 27 February 1881, whilst fighting the Boers in South Africa. (The author
- [The Fall of Singapore - a summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/02/15/the-fall-of-singapore-a-summary/) - With the fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942, Britain suffered the worst humiliation in its military history. The photograph sums it up: General Arthur Percival (far right), the British commander in Malaya, and his fellow officers, walking forlornly towards the Japanese commanders to sign the dismal surrender. With their baggy shorts, knee-length socks and
- [The Battle of the Bulge – a quick summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/12/16/the-battle-of-the-bulge-a-quick-summary/) - 16 December 1944 saw the start of the German ‘Ardennes Offensive’ (the Battle of the Bulge). It was to be the US’ biggest pitched battle in their history, involving 600,000 American troops. The Allied forces were advancing towards Germany, pushing the Germans back town by town and believing the war to be almost won. But
- [Mary Seacole - a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2016/05/14/mary-seacole-brief-biography/) - This is how the story goes… Mary Seacole was born Mary Jane Grant in 1805, in Kingston, Jamaica to a Jamaican mother and a Scottish soldier: ‘I have good Scots blood coursing through my veins,’ as she wrote on page one of her memoir. Her mother, a freed black woman, kept a home, or a
- [Kliment Voroshilov: Defender of Leningrad - a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2014/11/25/kliment-voroshilov-defender-of-leningrad-a-brief-biography/) - During the 900-day siege of Leningrad, the man initially charged with the city’s defence was one of Stalin’s old favourites, Kliment Voroshilov, born 4 February 1881. Rupert Colley summarises his efforts. During the Second World War, the city of Leningrad (modern-day St Petersburg) was in the midst of a devastating 900-day blockade that lasted from September 1941
- [Vidkun Quisling - a summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/07/18/vidkun-quisling-a-summary/) - On 24 October 1945, Vidkun Quisling, the Norwegian Nazi, was executed as the ultimate traitor, and a new word entered common usage. Born 18 July 1887, Vidkun Quisling’s life and early career had started promisingly. As a child, the son of a Lutheran pastor, he was considered somewhat a mathematical child prodigy and, as a
- [Tsar Nicholas II – a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/05/17/tsar-nicholas-ii-a-brief-biography/) - On Sunday 13 March 1881, the 13-year-old Nikolay Alexandrovich Romanov, the future tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, was accompanying his father and grandfather on a carriage through the streets of St Petersburg. His grandfather, Tsar Alexander II, had been to see his routine Sunday morning parade, despite advice that there were plots to have him
- [Ekaterina Dzhugashvili – Stalin’s mother](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/02/05/ekaterina-dzhugashvili-stalins-mother/) - Joseph Stalin’s mother, Ekaterina Dzhugashvili, born 5 February 1858, married at the age of fourteen. Her first two children, both boys, died within their first year. Her third child, Joseph Dzhugashvili, was born on 18 December 1878, and although struck by a bout of smallpox, he survived. History would remember him better as Joseph Stalin.
- [Svetlana Alliluyeva (Lana Peters), Stalin’s Daughter - a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/02/28/svetlana-alliluyeva-lana-peters-stalins-daughter-a-brief-biography/) - 22 November 2011 saw the death of Lana Peters in Wisconsin. To those who came into contact with her, she was simply a lonesome frail 85-year-old with a rather strange accent. But she was, in fact, once known by the name of Svetlana Stalin and she was the daughter of Joseph Stalin. Peters’ arrival in
- [Battle of the Bulge - brief summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2014/12/16/battle-of-the-bulge-facts/) - 16 December 1944 saw the start of the German 'Ardennes Offensive' (the Battle of the Bulge). It was to be the US’ biggest pitched battle in their history, involving 600,000 American troops. The Allied forces were advancing towards Germany, pushing the Germans back town by town and believing the war to be almost won. But
- [The Nanking Massacre - a summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2014/12/13/the-nanking-massacre-summary/) - 13 December 1937 saw the start of one of the most horrific acts of brutality of the Second World War, the Nanking Massacre, often referred to as the 'Rape of Nanking'. In Britain or the US, we may consider the war to have started in 1939 or 1941, but many modern historians consider this to
- [Anne Frank - a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/06/12/anne-frank-a-brief-biography/) - “I hope I shall be able to confide in you completely, as I have never been able to do in anyone before, and I hope that you will be a great support and comfort to me.” Her voice has come to symbolise the Holocaust, one victim among the six million who spoke for them all, a
- [The German Occupation of the Channel Islands – a summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/05/09/the-german-occupation-of-the-channel-islands-a-summary/) - Recently I enjoyed a few days in Guernsey and visited the German Museum of Occupation. It was strange seeing images of familiar English scenes: the country lane with a red telephone box to one side – with a Nazi walking past; or a church with its spire and, nearby, a swastika flag fluttering in the breeze.
- [Reinhard Heydrich – a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/03/07/reinhard-heydrich-a-brief-biography/) - On 4 June 1942, the Nazi wartime leader of occupied Czechoslovakia, Reinhard Heydrich, died. He had been the victim of an assassination attempt a week earlier. Aged 38, the ‘Butcher of Prague’ was dead. Six months earlier, on 28 December 1941, two Free Czech agents, Jan Kubis and Jozef Gabčík, trained by Britain’s Special Operations
- [The Reichstag Fire – brief summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/01/10/the-reichstag-fire-brief-summary/) - 9 p.m. 27 February 1933, Berlin’s Reichstag building was set ablaze. By the time firefighters had arrived, the parliament building was already gutted. But the Reichstag Fire provided Hitler with a perfect excuse… A communist outrage Only four weeks earlier, Adolf Hitler had been appointed German Chancellor. On hearing the news of the fire at the Reichstag, Hitler and Joseph
- [Max Schmeling – the boxer the Nazis tried to claim as their own](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/09/28/max-schmeling-the-boxer-the-nazis-tried-to-claim-as-their-own/) - One of the most politically-charged sporting events took place in New York’s Yankee Stadium on 22 June 1938 – a boxing match between the then heavyweight champion of the world, Joe Louis, the ‘Brown Bomber’, and the German, Max Schmeling, the unwilling darling of the Nazi Party. Born 28 September 1905, Max Schmeling had advanced
- [D-day and Omaha beach – a brief summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/06/06/d-day-and-omaha-beach-a-brief-summary/) - D-Day, 6 June 1944, a date that altered the course of history, saw the largest amphibious invasion ever launched. Led by troops from the US, Great Britain and Canada, and involving Allied divisions from across the globe, the invasion of Occupied France, codenamed Operation Overlord, had been years in the planning and subject to the utmost
- [Lavrenty Beria - a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2014/12/23/lavrenty-beria-a-brief-biography/) - On 23 December 1953, Lavrenti Beria was executed. Born in Georgia on 29 March 1899, Beria had risen to prominence in Georgia during the Russian Revolution of 1917 and, during the 1920s, became a firm favourite of fellow Georgian, Joseph Stalin. In 1938 Beria was appointed head of the dreaded secret police, the NKVD. ‘Perfidy and cunning’ A
- [The Wilhelm Gustloff – the Worst Maritime Disaster In History](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/01/30/the-wilhelm-gustloff/) - 30 January 1945 – nine hours after leaving port and seventy minutes after being hit, the huge liner, the Wilhelm Gustloff, slipped under the waves and sunk. A small fleet of ships and boats arrived on the scene and managed to pluck a few survivors from the icy waters and rescued many of those on the
- [Operation Barbarossa: Germany's invasion of Russia – a summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/06/22/operation-barbarossa-germany-invasion-of-russia-a-summary/) - On 22 June 1941, Adolf Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union. What followed was a war of annihilation, a horrific clash of totalitarianism, and the most destructive war in history. Hitler’s intention was always to invade the Soviet Union. It was, along with the destruction of the Jews, fundamental to his
- [Edith Cavell - a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2014/12/04/edith-cavell-a-brief-biography/) - When the First World War broke out, Edith Cavell was working as a matron in a Brussels nursing school, a school she had co-founded in 1907 and where she'd helped pioneer the importance of follow-up care. But at the time, July 1914, she was on leave, holidaying with her family in Norfolk, England. On hearing
- [Hitler's Mein Kampf - a summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/07/18/hitlers-mein-kampf-a-summary/) - Originally published on 18 July 1925, Adolf Hitler’s semi-autobiographical rant, Mein Kampf, sold moderately at first. A second book, a follow-up written in 1928, was never published. However, by the end of 1933, Hitler’s first year in power, Mein Kampf, the 'Bible of National Socialism', had sold over a million copies. By 1939, at the outbreak
- [Georg Elser, the Man Who Almost Assassinated Hitler](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/01/04/georg-elser-the-man-who-almost-assassinated-hitler/) - The date is 8 November 1939, the location – the Bürgerbräukeller beer hall in Munich. With their uniforms freshly pressed, their buttons gleaming, their shoes polished, Hitler’s longest-standing comrades filed into the hall, their chests puffed up with pride, their wives at their sides. This event, on this day, had become an annual occasion in
- [Erwin Rommel – and his forced suicide](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/10/14/erwin-rommel-and-his-forced-suicide/) - ‘We have a very daring and skillful opponent against us, and, may I say across the havoc of war, a great general.’ The words were Winston Churchill’s and the great general he was referring to was Erwin Rommel. The Desert Fox Born 15 November 1891, Erwin Rommel was, as Churchill suggests, respected as a master tactician,
- [Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya - a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2014/11/25/zoya-kosmodemyanskaya-a-brief-biography/) - On 29 November 1941, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, aged 18, was executed by German occupiers. The Germans had invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 and by late November had surrounded and laid siege to Leningrad and were bearing down on Moscow. The Soviet authorities were recruiting volunteers to break through the German lines and operate as partisan fighters
- [The Sinking of Hospital ship Armenia](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/11/07/the-sinking-of-hospital-ship-armenia/) - On 7 November 1941, the Soviet hospital ship, the Armenia, was torpedoed and sunk by the Germans. It was one of the worst maritime disasters in history. All but eight of the 7,000 passengers perished on a ship designed for not more than a thousand. A comparatively modest 1,514 died on the Titanic (1912) and 1,198
- [Mata Hari – a brief summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/08/07/mata-hari-a-brief-summary/) - She enticed audiences with her dancing, her exoticism and eroticism – and her bejewelled bra, but in 1917, Mata Hari, a Malayan term meaning ‘eye of the day’, was shot by firing squad. Margaretha Zelle Born 7 August 1876 to a wealthy Dutch family, Margaretha Geertruida Zelle responded to a newspaper advertisement from a Rudolf
- [The Sinking of the Lusitania – a brief summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/05/07/the-sinking-of-the-lusitania-a-brief-summary/) - On the 7 May 1915, a German U-boat sunk the British luxury liner, the RMS Lusitania. 1,198 people lost their lives, including 128 Americans. Its sinking caused moral outrage both in Britain and in the US and led, ultimately, to the USA declaring war against Germany. The ‘Great War’ was still less than a year old. On 18
- [Robert Capa – a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/05/25/robert-capa-a-brief-biography/) - ‘If your photographs aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.’ Considered one of the greatest war photographers, Robert Capa’s images, especially those taken during the Spanish Civil War and the D-Day landings, are among the iconic images of the twentieth century. Born Andre Friedmann in Budapest on 22 October 1913, Robert Capa had, by the
- [Eva Braun – a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/02/06/eva-braun-a-brief-biography/) - Born 6 February 1912, Eva Braun first met her future husband, Adolf Hitler, while working as an assistant and model to Hitler’s official photographer, Heinrich Hoffman. It was 1929 and she was 17, Hitler 40. At the time Hitler had taken upon himself the responsibility of looking after his 21-year-old niece, Geli Raubal. The exact relationship between uncle
- [Malta during World War Two - a summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/04/15/malta-during-world-war-two-a-summary/) - On 15 April 1942, Malta received Britain’s highest civilian award for gallantry, the George Cross. But why would an island receive a medal? Lying halfway between Italy and North Africa, the 120-square-mile island of Malta unwittingly played a pivotal role during the North African campaign in World War Two. Part of the British Empire since
- [Karl Eliasberg – a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/02/12/karl-eliasberg-a-brief-biography/) - In August 1942, Karl Eliasberg conducted a symphony, Shostakovich’s Seventh, in what must rate as the most gruelling concert ever given – for it took place in the city of Leningrad, a city surrounded by Germans and in the midst of a devastating siege which was to last almost 900 days. Throughout his life, Karl
- [Walter Ulbricht – a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/06/30/walter-ulbricht-a-brief-biography/) - Most leaders possess a strength of character, charisma even, for which they are either admired or disliked, loved or loathed, but always acknowledged. Walter Ulbricht, East Germany’s head of state from 1950 to 1973, was an unusually dull man, devoid of personality, devoted to the socialist cause, but with no empathy for the working masses, the very
- [The East German Uprising – an outline](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/06/17/the-east-german-uprising-an-outline/) - The East German Uprising, 16-17 June 1953. Stalin had died three months before, and a new post-Stalinist era beckoned for those trapped behind the Iron Curtain. But if the workers of East Germany thought that Stalin’s death meant change, they were soon disabused as the East German premier, Walter Ulbricht, strove to increase industrial output. Walter Ulbricht’s plan
- [Imre Nagy’s re-interment, 16 June 1989, Budapest](https://rupertcolley.com/2018/10/26/imre-nagys-re-interment-16-june-1989-budapest/) - In Budapest, on 16 June 1989, a solemn and symbolic ceremony was held. On this day, almost thirty-three years after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Imre Nagy was re-interred and, 31 years after his execution, honoured with a funeral befitting a man of his stature. Tens of thousands of people lined the routes and crowded into Heroes’ Square, paying
- [Lenin’s Testament - a summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2014/12/24/lenins-testament/) - In December 1922, while recovering from a stroke, Bolshevik party leader, Vladimir Lenin, wrote his 600-word ‘Testament’ in which he proposed changes to the structure of the party’s Central Committee and commented on its individual members, comments that caused turmoil within the party leadership following his death in January 1924. Lenin began his Testament with his
- [The Munich Putsch – a brief outline](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/11/08/the-munich-putsch-a-brief-outline/) - During the early 1920s, Adolf Hitler became convinced that the way to power lay in revolution. Revolution had brought power to the Bolsheviks in Russia and had almost done the same for the Communists in Germany during the chaos of the immediate post-First World War period. Hitler watched, with fascination and admiration, as Mussolini took
- [The 'Jews Out' Board Game - a brief history](https://rupertcolley.com/2014/11/25/the-jews-out-board-game-a-brief-history/) - The Wiener Library in London has on display a macabre board game intended to be a bit of fun for your average family living in 1930s Nazi Germany. It is called Juden Raus! ‘Jews Out!’ – with an exclamation mark. The object of the Jews Out board game is to force the Jews beyond the medieval walls
- [Cardinal Mindszenty – a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/05/06/cardinal-mindszenty-a-brief-biography/) - Hungarian cardinal, Joseph Mindszenty, came to symbolise the church’s opposition to tyranny and totalitarianism. Born Joseph Pehm on 29 March 1892 in the Hungarian village of Csehi-Mindszent (the name which, in 1941, Pehm adopted), Mindszenty was ordained a priest in 1915 at the age of 23. He spoke out against Hungary’s short-lived Soviet Republic and
- [Matyas Rakosi – brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/02/05/matyas-rakosi-brief-biography/) - Matyas Rakosi was, from 1949 to 1953, Joseph Stalin’s man in Hungary. A Stalinist to his core, Rakosi secured and maintained power by methods of terror and oppression, but, soon after the death of his mentor, was removed from office. Matyas Rakosi was born one of eleven children to Jewish parents on 9 March 1892
- [Blood in the Water – Cold War Olympics](https://rupertcolley.com/2014/12/06/blood-in-the-water-cold-war-olympics/) - 6 December 1956 saw one of the most violent and politically-charged sporting clashes in history, an event that came to be known as ‘ Blood in the Water ’. The occasion was the Olympic water polo semi-final between Hungary and the USSR. Played against the backdrop of Cold War politics, the game was, from start
- [Imre Nagy – a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/06/07/imre-nagy-a-brief-biography/) - Imre Nagy is remembered with great affection in today’s Hungary. Although a communist leader during its years of one-party rule, Nagy was the voice of liberalism and reform, advocating national communism, free from the shackles of the Soviet Union. Following the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Nagy was arrested, tried in secret, and executed. His rehabilitation
- [Bernard Montgomery – a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/03/24/bernard-montgomery-a-brief-biography/) - The son of a bishop, Bernard Montgomery, or ‘Monty’, was born in London but spent his early years in Tasmania. He fought during much of the First World War and was twice badly wounded. An obstinate individual, he fell out with his mother to such an extent that when she died in 1949, he refused to attend her funeral.
- [Grigori Rasputin - a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2014/12/29/grigori-rasputin-a-brief-biography/) - When Prince Felix Yusupov offered his guest, Grigori Rasputin, refreshments at his palace in St Petersburg on the evening of 29 December 1916, the glass of red wine and Rasputin's favourite cakes were laced with enough poison to kill five men. Rasputin, however, seemed totally unaffected as he gulped back the wine and wolfed down the
- [Heinrich Himmler – a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/05/23/heinrich-himmler-a-brief-biography/) - With his rimless glasses and small physique, Heinrich Himmler’s appearance was at odds with his fearsome manner. Indeed, one English visitor observed, ‘nobody I met in Germany is more normal.’ A German officer described Himmler’s ‘slender, pale and almost girlishly soft hands … He looked to me like an intelligent elementary schoolteacher, certainly not a man of violence.’
- [Geli Raubal – Hitler’s niece: a summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/06/04/geli-raubal-hitlers-niece-a-summary/) - On 18 September 1931, a 23-year-old woman was found dead in a sumptuous nine-room Munich apartment, a single shot wound into her heart. Her name was Geli Raubal, the apartment was rented to Adolf Hitler, and the young woman happened to be Hitler’s niece. Cause of death – suicide. Naturally. Geli Raubal was the daughter of Hitler’s
- [Adolf Hitler and his women](https://rupertcolley.com/2016/04/20/adolf-hitler-women/) - Hitler was never truly comfortable in the company of women, but women found him strangely attractive. Hitler's First Love Adolf Hitler's first love, in Vienna, was a Jewish girl called Stefanie but, lacking the courage, he never spoke to her. Instead, he wrote love poems about her which his youthful friend, the poor August Kubizek,
- [The Sinking of HMS Hood – a summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/05/24/the-sinking-of-hms-hood-a-summary/) - On 24 May 1941, two mighty ships engaged in battle – the respective pride of the German and British navies: the Bismarck and HMS Hood. It started six days before when, on the evening of Sunday 18 May 1941, the Bismarck, accompanied by the Prinz Eugene, set sail from the Polish port of Gdynia. It was the Bismarck’s first mission. “There
- [The Execution of Mussolini – an outline](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/04/28/the-execution-of-mussolini-an-outline/) - The execution of Mussolini: on 28 April 1945, Benito Mussolini and his mistress, Clara Petacci, were executed by partisans as they tried to flee Italy. The war was going badly for Italy, the Allies had landed in Sicily and the future looked bleak. Mussolini’s last plea On July 24, 1943, at a meeting of the Fascist
- [The Night of the Long Knives – a brief outline](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/06/30/the-night-of-the-long-knives-a-brief-outline/) - The Night of the Long Knives was Adolf Hitler’s great purge, ridding the Nazi Party of those he distrusted, together with anti-Nazi figures within Germany and members of his paramilitary wing, the SA. Its most notorious victim was Ernst Rohm, once his loyal friend and devotee. So what had brought Hitler to such a critical
- [Battle of Stalingrad – a brief summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/02/02/battle-of-stalingrad-a-brief-summary/) - On 2 February 1943, in what is considered the turning point of the Second World War in Europe, the final remnants of the German Sixth Army surrendered at the Battle of Stalingrad. Stalin’s City The city, originally called Tsaritsyn, was renamed Stalingrad, Stalin’s city, in April 1925, in recognition of Joseph Stalin's leading role in saving the city
- [Rachele Mussolini – a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/04/11/rachele-mussolini-a-brief-biography/) - In 1914, in Milan, the future fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, married Ida Dalser, a 34-year-old beautician who soon bore him a child, Benito Albino Mussolini. The marriage lasted just a few months and on 17 December 1915, before the birth of Benito Jr., Mussolini, at the time at home on army sick leave, married Rachele Guidi in a
- [Claretta Petacci – a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/02/28/claretta-petacci-a-brief-biography/) - Claretta Petacci, born 28 February 1912, was perhaps the biggest love in Benito Mussolini’s life, a man 28 years her senior. Brought up in a wealthy family, Clara’s father was the pope’s personal physician. Having been devoted to the Duce since childhood, she first met him, quite by accident, in 1932, when he drove pass 20-year-old Petacci
- [The Bombing of Dresden - a summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/02/13/the-bombing-of-dresden-a-summary/) - From about 10 pm on the night of 13 February 1945 until noon the following day, the East German city of Dresden was the subject of one the most intense bombing raids of the Second World War. Several German cities were targeted but it is the bombing of Dresden, and its utter destruction, that came to symbolise
- [The Day Stalin Almost Had a Breakdown](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/07/03/the-day-stalin-almost-had-a-breakdown/) - During his thirty-year rule of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin succeeded in stifling all opposition. There was never a serious threat to his leadership. But there was one occasion, at the end of June 1941, when Stalin suffered what may have been a mental breakdown. When, after three days, his colleagues came for him, he fully expected
- [The 20 July Bomb Plot – an outline](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/07/20/the-20-july-bomb-plot-an-outline/) - The attempt on Hitler’s life on 20 July 1944 was the seventeenth known occasion that someone had tried to kill Hitler. The most infamous occasion being Georg Elser's solo attempt in 1939. Unlike other attempts however this, the 20 July Bomb Plot, was the most intricate, and involved plans for a new Germany following the
- [Nikita Khrushchev’s Secret Speech - a summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/04/15/nikita-khrushchevs-secret-speech-a-summary/) - On 25 February 1956, Nikita Khrushchev delivered a speech to a closed session of party leaders in which he dismantled the legend of the recently-deceased Joseph Stalin and, over four hours, criticized almost every aspect of Stalin’s method of rule. The speech entitled On the Cult of the Individual and Its Consequences would become known as simply Khrushchev’s ‘Secret
- [Ernst Rohm - a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2014/11/25/ernst-rohm-a-brief-biography/) - Everyone called Adolf Hitler Mein Fuhrer, everyone except one man, one man who called him by his first name, a trusted comrade from the earliest days of the Nazi Party. That man was Ernst Rohm and in 1934 Hitler conspired to have him murdered. Rohm - World War One Born 28 November 1887, Ernst Rohm fought with distinction
- [Yakov Stalin – a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/03/18/yakov-stalin-a-brief-biography/) - Born 18 March 1907, Yakov Stalin (or Dzhugashvili) was the son of Joseph Stalin and Stalin’s first wife, Ekaterina Svanidze. Stalin certainly didn’t harbour particularly warm feelings for his son. Deprived of his father’s affections and upset by a failed romance, Yakov, or Yasha as Stalin called him, once tried to shoot himself. As he lay bleeding, his
- [The Kitchen Debate - a summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/07/24/the-kitchen-debate-a-summary/) - The Cold War and its ongoing ideological, political, and cultural battle was encapsulated by two men, both seemingly polite, arguing in a showroom kitchen in what has become known as the ‘Kitchen Debate’. The two men were Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet Premier, and Richard Nixon, the US Vice President. The occasion, on 24 July 1959, was the American
- [Hitler the Artist](https://rupertcolley.com/2014/11/25/hitler-the-artist/) - As works of art they are pleasant enough to the eye but, being almost instantly forgettable, don’t linger too long in the memory. Painted almost a century ago in Vienna, they were probably sold to a middle-class family or a local business where, hung on a wall, they were promptly ignored for years to come.
- [Alois Hitler, father to Adolf - brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/01/03/alois-hitler-biography/) - Alois Schicklgruber’s only claim to fame was that he was the father of Adolf Hitler. Born 7 June 1837, Alois Schicklgruber was the son of a 42-year-old unmarried farmhand by the name of Maria Anna Schicklgruber. The identity of his father remains uncertain: on Alois’s birth certificate the space for the father’s name was left
- [Sergei Kirov - a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2014/11/25/sergei-kirov-a-brief-biography/) - One bullet that killed a million people. As the assassination of John F Kennedy is to the US, so the assassination, 29 years earlier, of Sergei Kirov, Stalin’s number two, was to the Soviet Union. Everyone in the Soviet Union remembered where they were when they heard of the assassination of Kirov. Millions would die as a
- [August Kubizek, Hitler’s only friend - a summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/08/03/august-kubizek-hitlers-only-friend-a-summary/) - August Kubizek provides the only substantial witness account of Adolf Hitler’s early years in Linz and Vienna between 1907 and 1912. Born within nine months of each other, they met in their hometown of Linz where a shared love of art and music, especially the operas of Richard Wagner, brought them together. They became firm friends to
- [Leon Trotsky – a brief outline](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/08/21/leon-trotsky-a-brief-outline/) - Stalin wanted Trotsky dead. He’d got rid of Bukharin, Kamenev and Zinoviev and several other old Bolsheviks, but his greatest enemy, Leon Trotsky, was still alive. He’d thoroughly defeated his rival and had chased him out of the country. But still, it wasn’t enough. He didn’t care how long it took as long as Trotsky
- [Alexander II of Russia – a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/04/29/alexander-ii-of-russia-a-brief-biography/) - Born 29 April 1818, Alexander II came to the Russian throne, aged 36, following the death of his father, Tsar Nicholas I, in February 1855. Although a believer in autocracy, the reign of Alexander saw a number of fundamental reforms. Russia’s disastrous performance during the Crimean War of 1853-56, in which Russia’s military inferiority, weak
- [Nikolai Bukharin – a brief summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2016/03/15/nikolai-bukharin-a-brief-summary/) - On 15 March 1938, Nikolai Bukharin, one of the leading members of the post-Russian Revolution politburo, was executed. Born in Moscow on 9 October 1888 to two primary school teachers, the 17-year-old Bukharin joined the workers’ cause during the Russian Revolution of 1905 and, the following year, became a member of the Bolshevik Party. Like
- [Fanny Kaplan – the woman who tried to kill Lenin](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/02/10/fanny-kaplan-the-woman-who-tried-to-kill-lenin/) - Late in the evening of the 30 August 1918, Vladimir Lenin, the Bolshevik leader, emerged from a meeting at the Hammer and Sickle factory in Moscow when he was approached by an unknown woman who called out his name. Detained momentarily by a colleague, who was remonstrating about bread shortages, Lenin was about to get into his
- [Yuri Gagarin – the first man in space](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/03/27/yuri-gagarin-first-man-in-space/) - On 12 April 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to venture into space. Less than four years before, on 5 October 1957, the Soviets had launched the first satellite, or Sputnik, into space, followed a month later, on 3 November, almost the fortieth anniversary of the Russian Revolution, with a second, this time with
- [The Death of Stalin - a summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/03/05/the-death-of-stalin-a-summary/) - Joseph Stalin died 5 March 1953, aged 73, a victim of his own power. So frightened were his staff, that having suffered a stroke he was left to fester for hours before anyone plucked up the courage to check on him. “I don’t even trust myself.” In his latter years, Stalin’s health had deteriorated and
- [Self-publishing v Traditional publishing: the pros and cons: one’s writer’s experience](https://rupertcolley.com/2021/03/03/self-publishing-v-traditional-publishing-the-pros-and-cons-ones-writers-experience/) - Let’s be honest, self-publishing is the last resort for writers who can’t get a publisher. Isn’t it? For any writer, the idea of getting a deal with one of the major publishing houses is the stuff of dreams. You sign your name on the dotted line and then sit back waiting for a life of
- [Nat Turner - the Slave Who Killed For God](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/10/02/nat-turner-slave-revolt/) - There were as many as 250 slave revolts in the American South during the antebellum period before the American Civil War. But it was the uprising in Southampton County, Virginia, led by Nat Turner that, by the scale of its ferocity, caused the greatest shock. Born a slave on 2 October 1800, the young Nat
- [Marcus Garvey – a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/06/10/marcus-garvey-a-brief-biography/) - On 18 May 1940, Marcus Garvey, the once ostentatious and extravagant Black Nationalist, read an obituary of himself in the Chicago Defender. Garvey, who had been living in London since 1935 and residing in Talgarth Road, W14, was recovering from a stroke when he read, “Alone, deserted by his followers, broke and unpopular, Marcus Garvey, once leader of
- [Ida Dalser - Mussolini's first wife](https://rupertcolley.com/2014/12/03/ida-dalser-a-brief-biography/) - In Milan during 1914, the future fascist dictator of Italy, Benito Mussolini, married Ida Dalser, a 34-year-old beautician. Dalser, born 20 August 1880, soon bore him a child, Benito Albino Mussolini, and sold her business to help her husband fund his new newspaper, Il Popolo d’Italia, ‘The People of Italy’. The marriage did not last and before
- [Death of a Forgotten Hero](https://rupertcolley.com/2017/05/19/the-death-of-a-forgotten-hero/) - It was three years ago, May 15, 2017, that the notorious serial child killer, the Moors Murderer, Ian Brady, died. Every UK newspaper and news channel had his 1965 mugshot on their front pages or on our screens; many column inches and many minutes of airtime were devoted to his life and his notorious, foul
- [Death of a Forgotten Hero](https://rupertcolley.com/2020/05/23/forgotten-hero/) - It was three years ago, May 15, that the notorious serial child killer, the Moors Murderer, Ian Brady, had died. Every UK newspaper and news channel had his 1965 mugshot on their front pages or on our screens; many column inches and many minutes of airtime were devoted to his life and his notorious, foul
- [The Amritsar Massacre – a brief outline](https://rupertcolley.com/2016/04/13/amritsar-massacre-brief-outline/) - On Sunday 13 April 1919, the occupants of the city of Amritsar in Punjab were preparing to celebrate the Sikh New Year. Three days previously, six Britons had been indiscriminately killed by an Indian mob and the British, fearful of further violence during such a potentially volatile occasion, sent in a man ‘not afraid to
- [Dunkirk - film review](https://rupertcolley.com/2017/07/21/dunkirk-film-review/) - The ghost of Dunkirk has been a constant presence in Britain’s consciousness ever since the events that played out in this French coastal town in the spring of 1940. It scarred us but it has also provided a benchmark for endurance and stoicism, the ‘Dunkirk spirit’. But it’s easy to forget what exactly happened on
- [Mangal Pandey – a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/04/08/mangal-pandey-a-brief-biography/) - The events that led to India's ‘First War of Independence’, or to use its Eurocentric name, the ‘Indian Mutiny’, stemmed from decades of grievances and unrest but it was something quite mundane that sparked the rebellion and it was a single man, Mangal Pandey, that fired the first shots. The sepoys had been issued with
- [World War Two's RAF Bomber Command](https://rupertcolley.com/2016/04/05/world-war-twos-raf-bomber-command/) - On 28 June 2012, the Queen, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Charles and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, unveiled a new memorial, the Bomber Command Memorial, to the airmen of the Royal Air Force Bomber Command who fought during the Second World War. The Bomber Command Memorial, made of Portland Stone and situated in London’s
- [Malcolm X: a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/02/21/malcolm-x-a-brief-biography/) - Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little on 19 May 1925, the fourth of eight children. The family lived in Omaha in Nebraska where his father, a Baptist minister, Earl Little, was a prominent member of the local branch of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and an ardent supporter of Marcus Garvey. Rev Little’s prominence brought the
- [Exercise Tiger – a brief outline](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/04/28/exercise-tiger-a-brief-outline/) - As D-Day approached, training intensified. Troops were told only what they needed to know; they certainly had no idea about when or where they’d be going into action. Troops trained embarking and disembarking from landing craft. (The flat-bottomed Landing Craft, Assault vessels (LCA) weighed ten tons each, could carry thirty-eight men and travel up to ten knots
- [The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln – a summary](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/04/15/the-assassination-of-abraham-lincoln-a-summary/) - On 15 April 1865, in Washington DC, Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the United States, died, having been shot in the back of the head the night before by John Wilkes Booth. Only six days before, Confederate forces under General Robert E Lee had surrendered to General Ulysses S Grant, effectively bringing to an end the American Civil War.
- [ww2test](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/03/31/ww2test/) - The Real Start of the Second World War The Second World War began in September 1939. But did it? Historians now tend to regard this as a very Eurocentric view. Instead, they point to a skirmish between the Chinese and Japanese near Beijing known as the Marco Polo Incident that blew up on 7 July
- [International Women’s Day](https://rupertcolley.com/2016/03/08/international-womens-day/) - 8 March: International Women’s Day: including articles on…
- [New History books: Jan-Feb 2016](https://rupertcolley.com/2016/03/01/new-history-books-jan-feb-2016/) - My primary historic interest is very much the twentieth century, so there is a bias here. Nonetheless, here are 12 top reads published in January or February 2016... If you have any suggestions for any additions, let me know. (Thumbnail click for Amazon). [amazon template=thumbnail&asin=B015ZC2MQ2]The Bitter Taste of Victory: In the Ruins of the Reich Lara Feigel
- [New Historical Fiction: Jan-Feb 2016](https://rupertcolley.com/2016/03/01/new-historical-fiction-jan-feb-2016/) - My primary historic interest is very much the twentieth century, so there is a bias here. Nonetheless, here are 12 top reads published in January or February 2016… If you have any suggestions for any additions, let me know. (Thumbnail click for Amazon). [amazon template=thumbnail&asin=B00ZX99WE8]The Moonlit Garden Corina Bomann Lilly Kaiser had come to terms with her
- [Osama bin Laden – a brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2015/05/02/osama-bin-laden-a-brief-biography/) - Born 10 March 1957, Osama bin Laden was one of 52 (or more) siblings born to his billionaire father, Mohammed, and his 22 wives. Osama’s mother, Alia, was 14 when she married Mohammed, his tenth wife, and 15 when she gave birth to Osama (‘young lion’ in Arabic). Osama was the only product of
- [Jefferson Davis – brief biography](https://rupertcolley.com/2014/12/06/jefferson-davis-brief-biography/) - Jefferson Davis, 1808-1889, was the first, last, and only president of the Confederate States of America. The youngest of ten children, Jefferson Davis was born 3 June 1808 in a Kentuckian log cabin. He fought in the Black Hawk War of 1832, serving under the future president, Zachary Taylor. In 1835, Davis married Taylor’s daughter,
- [The Mau Mau Uprising - a brief history](https://rupertcolley.com/2014/11/26/the-mau-mau-uprising-a-brief-history/) - Half a century on, Kenyans tortured by the British colonial authorities during the Mau Mau Uprising received from the UK government payouts totalling £20m. The High Court had previously rejected the government’s claim that too much time had passed for there to be a fair trial. But what was the Mau Mau Uprising? After the Second World War,

## Pages

- [Homepage](https://rupertcolley.com/) - All novels are available as ebooks and paperbacks (except Elena), and The Woman on the Train is available as an audiobook. "The best book I've read in my 60 years if you judge a book by its efficacy in transporting you back to a place and time, and allowing you to experience and feel what
- [Monika (The Love and War Series, 6)](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/my-brother-the-enemy/) - Fear on the streets. Death on every corner. But the real enemy is the brother at his side. Part of The Love and War Series, novels set during the 20th century's darkest years. A short, heart-wrenching historical novella on a large canvas from the founder of History In An Hour. Monika is a story of jealousy, sibling
- [Netherlands](https://rupertcolley.com/international/netherlands/) - Alle titels zijn verkrijgbaar op Kindle, Kobo, Google Play en Bol. De Liefde en Oorlog Serie: Boxsets Aankomende titels Stuur me een e-mail om als eerste op de hoogte te zijn van aankomende releases: rupert@rupertcolley.com.
- [You Said Goodbye Too Soon](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/you-said-goodbye-too-soon/) - A letter written in grief. A stranger who needs to read it. Two lives changed forever. One fine autumn day, Julian Perry sat down and started writing a letter to his recently deceased wife. You Said Goodbye Too Soon began as that letter – a painfully honest account of how they met, built a family, and weathered
- [](https://rupertcolley.com/tld-redirect/) - The Lost Daughter A buried secret and a lifetime of guilt born in the dark heart of Nazi Germany England, 2001. Elizabeth has always suspected her mother habours a secret from her time as a young woman in Nazi Germany. But her mother, suffering from dementia, is lost to her now. When Elizabeth stumbles across a
- [The Death of the Listening Man](https://rupertcolley.com/joshua-black/the-death-of-the-listening-man/) - Follow Joshua on Amazon and be the first to know of new releases. People thought him a saint. He wasn't. Sam Wilkinson, a counsellor, known for his listening skills and empathy, is found murdered in his London flat. Why would anyone kill a man whose job was to make people feel better about themselves? Perhaps he knew
- [Joshua Black](https://rupertcolley.com/joshua-black/) - Follow Joshua on Amazon and be the first to know of new releases.
- [The Lost Daughter (The Love and War Series, 1)](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/the-lost-daughter/) - “Colley has a deft hand for creating a story that is impossible to put down. He creates characters that are inadvertently flawed yet highly sympathetic and a love story as moving as it is remarkable. He creates a sense of pathos but also hope in human frailty. Highly recommended.” Historical Novel Society 𝐀 𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝
- [Audiobooks](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/audiobooks/) - [table id=6 /] The Lost Daughter is also available on audio, narrated by Sophie Roberts. Available on Audible, Spotify, iTunes and as an audio CD. If links don't work for your location, simply use the search facility. If you want to join Audible and have access to thousands of great audio titles, please click here.
- [Spain](https://rupertcolley.com/international/spain/) - Todos los títulos están disponibles en Kindle, en formato de bolsillo y gratis en Kindle Unlimited. Cajas de colección La Saga de los Searight Caja de recolección
- [Italy](https://rupertcolley.com/international/italy/) - Tutti i titoli sono disponibili su Kindle, in formato cartaceo e gratis su Kindle Unlimited. Cofanetti La Saga dei Searight Cofanetto
- [France](https://rupertcolley.com/international/france/) - Tous les titres sont disponibles sur Kindle, en format broché et gratuitement sur Kindle Unlimited. La série Amour et Guerre : Coffrets La Saga des Searight : Coffret Veuillez m'envoyer un e-mail pour être informé en premier des prochaines parutions : rupert@rupertcolley.com.
- [Germany](https://rupertcolley.com/international/germany/) - Alle Titel sind auf Kindle, als Taschenbuch und kostenlos bei Kindle Unlimited verfügbar. Die Liebe und Krieg Reihe Schuber: Die Searight-Saga Schuber: Bitte schreiben Sie mir eine E-Mail, um als Erster von zukünftigen Veröffentlichungen zu erfahren: rupert@rupertcolley.com.
- [International](https://rupertcolley.com/international/) - France Germany Italy Spain Netherlands Brazil
- [Brazil](https://rupertcolley.com/international/brazil/)
- [Historical Fiction](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/) - Historical Fiction with Heart and Drama. All ten novels are available as ebooks and paperbacks, and The Woman on the Train is available as an audiobook. Elena is a short story that is free to download. Love and War Series, novels set during the 20th century's darkest years: The Searight Saga: The Boxed Sets: The Cruellest
- [Home](https://rupertcolley.com/home/) - All novels are available as ebooks and paperbacks, and The Woman on the Train is available as an audiobook. "The best book I've read in my 60 years if you judge a book by its efficacy in transporting you back to a place and time, and allowing you to experience and feel what
- [Die verlorene Tochter](https://rupertcolley.com/die_verlorene_tochter/) - Ein unvergesslicher Roman, inspiriert von einem schockierenden Stück Geschichte. Ein begrabenes Geheimnis und lebenslange Schuld, geboren im dunklen Herzen Nazi-Deutschlands. England, 2001. Elizabeth hat schon immer vermutet, dass ihre Mutter ein Geheimnis aus ihrer Zeit als junge Frau im Nazi-Deutschland hütet. Doch ihre Mutter, die an Demenz leidet, ist ihr nun entrückt. Als Elizabeth zufällig
- [Rupert's Shop](https://rupertcolley.com/shop/) - To buy directly from me, please visit my new online store, hosted by Shopify. Authors, if you want to set up your own store, I'd recommend taking a comprehensive and affordable course hosted by Matthew J. Holmes. This is an affiliate link which means if you purchase using this link, I'll earn a few
- [TMBOE](https://rupertcolley.com/tmboe/) - Hi there, You can download 'Mist' from this BookFunnel link: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/b2nfjh9mqv
- [About Rupert Colley](https://rupertcolley.com/about/) - I am a writer of historical fiction and short factual history. I was born one Christmas Day, which means, as a child, I lost out on presents. Nonetheless, looking back on it, I lived a childhood with a “silver spoon in my mouth” – brought up in a rambling manor house in the beautiful Devon
- [Boxed Sets](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/boxed-sets/) - The German Trilogy, consisting of The Lost Daughter, Song of Sorrow and The Mist Before Our Eyes. The French Trilogy, consisting of The White Venus, The Woman on the Train and The Darkness We Leave Behind. The Cruellest Years, consisting of
- [The French Trilogy: The White Venus, The Woman on the Train and The Darkness We Leave Behind](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/boxed-sets/the-french-trilogy/) - Three novels, three unforgettable experiences… Available as a Kindle book. The White Venus When you trust your enemy more than your family June 1940. A village in northern France awaits the arrival of a garrison of conquering Germans. To their dismay, 16-year-old Pierre and his parents are
- [The German Trilogy: The Lost Daughter, Song of Sorrow and The Mist Before Our Eyes](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/boxed-sets/the-german-trilogy/) - Three novels, three unforgettable experiences… Available as a Kindle book. The Lost Daughter A buried secret and a lifetime of guilt born in the dark heart of Nazi Germany England, 2001. Elizabeth has always suspected her mother harbours a secret from her time as a young woman in
- [The Darkness We Leave Behind (The Love and War Series, 10)](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/the-darkness-we-leave-behind/) - The memories that haunt you can destroy you. Time doesn’t always heal. The Second World War finished 23 years before but for some, the memory of it never goes away. Paris, 1968. Four friends meet once a week in a cafe in the Parisian suburbs. They drink coffee, smoke, play dominoes and talk about everything
- [The Red Oak: (The Searight Saga, 3)](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/the-red-oak/) - The past is always with us; it's just that sometimes we don't see it. Part Three of The Searight Saga. Summer 2004. Tom Searight can’t relate to his 14-year-old daughter, Charlotte, or his cantankerous old father, Robert. But his life really disintegrates when he discovers his wife of 15 years, Julie, is having an affair
- [The Unforgiving Sea (The Searight Saga, 2)](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/the-unforgiving-sea/) - “Absolutely stunning. Harrowing and deeply thought-provoking. This beautifully written WWII novel echoes the best existential novels of a bygone age. Brilliant!” — RHYS BOWEN, author of In Farleigh Field. “Rupert Colley’s The Unforgiving Sea is a poignant fable that reminds us of the frailty of our morality. Through richly drawn characters, Colley shows the power of confession and
- [This Time Tomorrow (The Searight Saga, 1)](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/this-time-tomorrow/) - Two brothers. One woman. A nation at war. Part One of The Searight Saga. A compelling story of war, brotherly love, passion and betrayal during World War One. Vast in scope and intimate in the portrayal of three lives swept along by circumstances, 'This Time Tomorrow' moves from the drawing rooms of Edwardian London to
- [Elena (The Love and War Series, 8)](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/elena/) - A reunion worth dreaming about. Naples, 1944. Elena, aged twelve, is left orphaned and traumatized by war. But a gift from an African American soldier shows her that kindness can still exist in a cruel world. Post-war, and now a young woman, the memory of the soldier obsesses her. Eleven years after their first meeting, their paths
- [Anastasia (The Love and War Series, 7)](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/anastasia/) - Also available as part of The Cruellest Years boxed set. Sometimes the simplest of choices can have the most devastating of consequences. Sometimes falling in love can be a curse. Sometimes being the hard man is the hardest job. Part of The Love and War Series, novels set during the 20th century's darkest years. Hungary, 1949.
- [The Black Maria (The Love and War Series, 5)](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/the-black-maria/) - Also available as part of The Cruellest Years boxed set. When love becomes your greatest enemy. Part of The Love and War Series, novels set during the 20th century's darkest years. Moscow, 1935. Stalin is in power. People live in constant fear – fear of each other, fear of being denounced, and fear of Stalin’s secret
- [The Woman on the Train (The Love and War Series, 4)](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/the-woman-on-the-train/) - The Woman on the Train is now available as an audiobook. Someone saves your life. How far will you go to repay the debt when you realise what sort of person they are? Part of The Love and War Series, novels set during the 20th century's darkest years. Summer, 1942, Nazi-occupied France. A nervous young man
- [Song of Sorrow (The Love and War Series, 3)](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/song-of-sorrow/) - What if a violin could tell the story of its owners across a century? One violin. One curse. One hundred years. Germany 1871. A violin of pure perfection. Crafted with love by its creator and set to make him and his family a fortune. But his wife, Katharina, is duped by a powerful businessman and
- [The White Venus (The Love and War Series, 2)](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/the-white-venus/) - When the ties of loyalty are severed, whom do you trust? Part of The Love and War Series, novels set during the 20th century's darkest years. It is June 1940. France has surrendered and the Nazi German occupation begins. A small village in northern France awaits the arrival of a garrison of conquering Germans. To their
- [The Mist Before Our Eyes (The Love and War Series, 9)](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/the-mist-before-our-eyes/) - An ordinary boy, a murderous regime. This is how it happened… Berlin, 1933. 14-year-old Felix Stoltenberg is desperate to be friends with Klaus Beck to the point he defies his anti-Nazi parents and joins the Hitler Youth. As the years pass and Hitler’s grip on the nation tightens, Felix and Klaus’ boyhood pranks take a
- [The Mist Before Our Eyes - extract](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/the-mist-before-our-eyes/the-mist-before-our-eyes-extract/) - R.P.G. Colley © 2023 Rupert Colley 'Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.' Voltaire PROLOGUE Russia, October 1942 It is autumn, the day bright, but tinged with a cold breeze sweeping across a huge field of burnt wheat and furrows of stubble, some hundred kilometres southeast of
- [A Senseless Killing](https://rupertcolley.com/joshua-black/a-senseless-killing/) - Why would anyone want to kill her? Tammy Fournier, an elderly woman with Alzheimer's, is found dead – murdered in her own bed. To Detective Inspector Benedict Paige, it seems like a totally senseless killing. It soon becomes apparent that Tammy’s husband, intending to start a fresh life with his lover, had recently changed his
- [The Canal Boat Killer](https://rupertcolley.com/joshua-black/the-canal-boat-killer/) - You can never truly bury the past. Eighteen years ago, a baby went missing – snatched from under his parents’ eyes. He was never seen again. Eighteen years ago, Ian Turner took part in a robbery. His partner-in-crime, a habitual crook called Alan Milner, hit a man and put the poor guy in a coma.
- [The Forget-Me-Not Killer](https://rupertcolley.com/joshua-black/the-forget-me-not-killer/) - I know the truth. I know what you did… Three retired men, Austin, Brian and Charles, each receive a greeting card with a bucolic painting of forget-me-not flowers on the front. But the message inside is far from tranquil. It reminds them of the terrible deed they committed twenty years ago. All this time, they
- [Images](https://rupertcolley.com/about/images/) - All images (apart from book covers) are, at the time of publication, in the public domain. However, things change and I find that an image that one day is in the public domain, next day is not. If you find an image on this site that is no longer in the public domain, please don't
- [Sophie](https://rupertcolley.com/sophie/) - Hi there, My name is Rupert Colley. I normally write historical fiction (as you'll see from this site) but these last few months I’ve written a contemporary tale under the pen name of Joshua Black. It's called 'Sophie', a psychological suspense. It’s 72k words (about 300 pages). I'm looking for a few beta readers/Amazon reviewers.
- [Sophie](https://rupertcolley.com/joshua-black/sophie/) - She has no idea who she’s letting into her life. Vivienne lives on her own in the coastal town of Hastings. Her husband died not long ago and she’s adjusting to a life without the mental abuse he subjected her to on a daily basis. One day, a stranger saves Vivienne from a bag snatcher.
- [And Then She Came Back](https://rupertcolley.com/joshua-black/and-then-she-came-back/) - Will the killing never stop? An elderly widow is found dead in her London home, a white mouse placed inside her mouth. It falls to Detective Inspector Benedict Paige to unmask this murderer with the cruel signature. He soon finds himself drawn back to 1982 and the notorious case of the serial killer dubbed ‘The
- [Departure in September](https://rupertcolley.com/the-tales-of-little-leaf/departure-in-september/) - Dan and all his friends are back in a third, thrilling adventure. A week before marrying Dan’s mother, Julian is forced into hiding. Dan becomes the unwitting go-between his future stepfather and the men who want to speak to him. Dan soon finds himself out of his depth as the tendrils of history and terror
- [Winter in July](https://rupertcolley.com/the-tales-of-little-leaf/winter-in-july/) - Dan’s life is going to the dogs. Dan is back. And now, at last, he’s got a girlfriend. Problem is, he doesn’t know how to talk to her, so he enlists the help of his mother’s new boyfriend. It’s not going to end well. Yet Dan is more worried about a friend’s dog that goes
- [The Poison In His Veins](https://rupertcolley.com/joshua-black/the-poison-in-his-veins/) - Revenge has never tasted sweeter… A young man is found tied naked to a tree in a London park. He is alive - but only just. A young woman becomes engaged to the love of her life and receives a mysterious engagement present. Soon after, her fiancé is the victim of a vicious hit and
- [Requiem for a Whistleblower](https://rupertcolley.com/joshua-black/requiem-for-a-whistleblower/) - Maybe she deserved to die… In a London park, Gayle Patterson, a former teacher, is found dead with stab wounds. Detective Inspector Benedict Paige's investigations lead to a 25-year-old called Colin. The murder weapon is recovered from Colin's garden, and, under questioning, he confesses to killing Gayle. The problem is that Colin has the mental
- [Clever Teen Guides](https://rupertcolley.com/non-fiction/clever-teen-guides-4/) - History for Clever Teenagers... Fantastic background reading for your "clever teenager". Available as an ebook and paperback. The Clever Teens' Guide to World War Two is also available as a short AUDIO book HERE. [table id=4 /] OR... if you want to purchase paperbacks via your local independent bookstore, please use INDIEBOUND.ORG.
- [Clever Teen Guides](https://rupertcolley.com/non-fiction/clever-teen-guides-3/) - History for Clever Teenagers... Fantastic background reading for your "clever teenager". Available as an ebook and paperback. The Clever Teens' Guide to World War Two is also available as a short AUDIO book HERE. [table id=4 /] OR... if you want to purchase paperbacks via your local independent bookstore, please use INDIEBOUND.ORG.
- [Clever Teen Guides](https://rupertcolley.com/non-fiction/clever-teen-guides-2/) - History for Clever Teenagers... Fantastic background reading for your "clever teenager". Available as an ebook and paperback. The Clever Teens' Guide to World War Two is also available as a short AUDIO book HERE. [table id=4 /] OR... if you want to purchase paperbacks via your local independent bookstore, please use INDIEBOUND.ORG.
- [History In An Hour & other non-fiction](https://rupertcolley.com/non-fiction/) - Any purchases made through links on this site earn the site a tiny commission.
- [Eleven Days in June](https://rupertcolley.com/the-tales-of-little-leaf/eleven-days-in-june/) - "Told with a big dose of truth and empathy, this book drew me to tears several times, filled a void I didn’t know I had and gave me healing I didn’t know I needed." "I expected a basic (but enjoyable) romantic comedy. Instead, I found something much deeper." "I can’t even begin to tell you
- [The Tales of Little Leaf](https://rupertcolley.com/the-tales-of-little-leaf/) - In March 2020, at the start of the first lockdown, I wanted to try and write something different from my usual historical fiction. The result... a trilogy of lighthearted, coming-of-age novels set in 1985 about a young, naive chap called Daniel, who lives in a small village in Devon (UK). The trilogy follows Dan's adventures,
- [The Love and War Series](https://rupertcolley.com/the-love-and-war-series/) - FICTION WITH HEART AND DRAMA "Colley has a deft hand for creating a story that is impossible to put down. He creates characters that are inadvertently flawed yet highly sympathetic and a love story as moving as it is remarkable. He creates a sense of pathos but also hope in human frailty. Highly recommended." Historical
- [Shop Now](https://rupertcolley.com/shop-now/) - Get 10% off all paperbacks (excluding the already discounted Bundles). Use Coupon Code: RPGC Paperbacks Bundles The Clever Teens' Guides - paperbacks
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- [Redirecting1](https://rupertcolley.com/redirecting1/) - Zipping you to Amazon in just a second...
- [Where to Buy](https://rupertcolley.com/where-to-buy/) - My ebooks are currently exclusive to Amazon. My paperbacks are available from Amazon, and various other online stores, or... from my new Shopify store.
- [Eleven Days in June: excerpt](https://rupertcolley.com/the-tales-of-little-leaf/eleven-days-in-june/excerpt/) - Nine years earlier 1976 Ollie was my only friend. I needed him. We were eleven years old that autumn and had just started secondary school, and I was already worried about losing him to other boys at school. I needed to make him my friend again; I couldn’t bear the thought of Ollie not being
- [On Starting History In An Hour](https://rupertcolley.com/non-fiction/history-in-an-hour/on-starting-history-in-an-hour/) - The fascination with history was always part of my growing up – why, I even had a father that was historic. He was already 63 by the time I was born and, as a teenager, it wasn’t always easy having a septuagenarian dad. Friends at school used to ask, 'why’s your dad so old?' They were
- [Song of Sorrow - extract](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/song-of-sorrow/song-of-sorrow-extract/) - Song of Sorrow One Violin. One curse. One hundred years R.P.G. Colley First Movement: Maker of Violins Sometimes I think I can see him, a silhouette in the distance. I lean forward, narrowing my eyes, trying to see through the haze of heat rising from the road. I want to call out his
- [Redirecting2](https://rupertcolley.com/redirecting2/) - Zipping you to Amazon in just a second...
- [The Searight Saga: This Time Tomorrow, The Unforgiving Sea and The Red Oak](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/boxed-sets/the-searight-saga/) - One family. Three generations. Three epic stories. Now available. Historical fiction at its best… Three engrossing novels following the fortunes of one family from Edwardian Britain and the trenches of the First World War to the turn of the new millennium. This Time Tomorrow ‘Two brothers. One woman. A nation at war.’ A compelling
- [The Cruellest Years: The Black Maria, Anastasia and My Brother the Enemy](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/boxed-sets/the-cruellest-years/) - The Cruellest Years: The Black Maria, My Brother the Enemy and Anastasia. A fantastic trilogy of historical fiction set in the 20th century. From 1930s Soviet Union to 1950s communist Hungary via 1940s Nazi Germany, a triple box set of novels depicting love, life and survival living under oppression, fear and tyranny. The Black Maria ‘When
- [The Searight Saga - R.P.G. Colley](https://rupertcolley.com/s-saga2/) - One family. Three generations. Three epic stories Historical fiction at its best… Three engrossing novels following the fortunes of one family from World War One to the turn of the new millennium. This Time Tomorrow Two brothers. One woman. A nation at war. When Guy Searight reluctantly volunteers to fight with the British army in
- [History In An Hour](https://rupertcolley.com/non-fiction/history-in-an-hour/) - There are 34 great titles in the History In An Hour series, thirteen by me, published by William Collins, part of HarperCollins UK. Why and how I started History In An Hour. (Please click on the jackets to link to Amazon for further information) All titles are also available as downloadable audio. See also details of my historical
- [Books read 2019](https://rupertcolley.com/books-read-2019/) - I only managed to read 32 novels during 2019, mainly because I also read a fair amount of non-fiction. So, here's the list in order of preference... Let me know (or comment) if you have any cracking recommendations. (T) = Translation. If interested, you can view 2018 here. 1The Doll FactoryElizabeth Macneal20192Where the Crawdads SingDelia
- [This Time Tomorrow - extract](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/this-time-tomorrow/this-time-tomorrow-extract/) - With the ticket in his hand, Jack made his way down the train corridor, pushing past soldiers, trying to find an empty compartment, but each one seemed to be full of men, shouting in good heart, laughing. Making his way, he saw at the end of the corridor, a lieutenant. The soldiers wouldn’t question him,
- [The Woman on the Train - extract](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/the-woman-on-the-train/the-woman-on-the-train-extract/) - Part One Annecy, September 1982 I was expecting a visitor. The first, perhaps, in years. I can’t remember. I had a tidy up in recognition of this momentous occasion – threw away newspapers that should have been thrown away weeks, if not months, ago, cleaned the toilet, pushed the vacuum cleaner around. At five minutes
- [The White Venus - extract](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/the-white-venus/extract/) - Chapter 1 Xavier passed him the chicken. ‘Go on then, you do it. Like you say, it can’t be that difficult.’ Pierre gathered the hen in his arms and stroked its head to try and keep it calm. Her sister hens and cousins ambled around the yard, pecking, their shadows long in the late afternoon sun,
- [Anastasia - extract](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/anastasia/anastasia-extract/) - Eva I decided to go to the café. The encounter with Karolina had unnerved me. The café was unusually busy for the time of morning – the breakfast crowd had gone but it was still too early for the first lunches. Yet, on this particular May morning, almost every table was occupied. So, it came as no
- [The Black Maria - extract](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/the-black-maria/the-black-maria-extract/) - The students had been told to take their places in the main lecturing theatre at the end of classes. Rosa, Ella and Claudia arrived early, determined to sit towards the back and melt into the anonymity of faces. The wooden floor echoed with the sound of slow footsteps as the students and lecturers came in
- [My Brother the Enemy - extract](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/my-brother-the-enemy/my-brother-the-enemy-extract/) - On their hike to school, Martin talked further of denouncing their father, of ‘ridding the family of its cancer.’ Peter thought of his mother and her loyalty to her husband, and tried to work out whether her loyalty was misguided or heroic. But he said nothing. He turned round to see Monika following them only
- [52 Weeks: 52 Novels](https://rupertcolley.com/about/52-novels-52-weeks/) - 2019 Update: I failed to read 52 novels in 52 weeks in 2018. I read 48. I would have succeeded if I hadn't fallen horribly ill towards the end of the year. I've set myself an ambitious target for 2018 - to read 52 novels within the year. My wife wasn't too impressed when I told
- [The Savage Years: Tales From the 20th Century](https://rupertcolley.com/non-fiction/the-savage-years-tales-from-the-20th-century/) - The suicide of Hitler’s niece, World War Two’s first victim, the killing of Rasputin, the assassinations of Malcolm X and Franz Ferdinand, the Battle of the Somme, the betrayal of Anne Frank and the woman who almost killed Lenin – these are some of the stories you’ll find in Rupert Colley’s new collection of articles,
- [The World Cup: A Short History](https://rupertcolley.com/non-fiction/the-world-cup-a-short-history/) - The FIFA World Cup is undoubtedly football’s greatest tournament. ‘The World Cup: A Short History’ chronicles, as the title implies, the history of the competition, tournament by tournament. Written by History In An Hour’s founder, Rupert Colley, The World Cup: A Short History takes the reader from Jules Rimet’s vision and the inaugural tournament in 1930 to
- [A History of the World Cup - extract](https://rupertcolley.com/non-fiction/the-world-cup-a-short-history/extract/) - The World Cup: A Short History Introduction On Thursday 14 June 2018 the opening match of the 21st FIFA World Cup* will take place between hosts, Russia, and Saudi Arabia at Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium. 88 years earlier, on 13 July 1930, Mexico and France and USA and Belgium played the opening matches of the first
- [World Cup Quiz answers](https://rupertcolley.com/non-fiction/the-world-cup-a-short-history/the-world-cup-quiz/the-world-cup-quiz-answers/the-world-cup-quiz-answers-for-real/) - And here are the answers to my World Cup quiz. (The questions relate only to the World Cup Finals, not the qualification stage). Which nation scored the very first World Cup goal? France. Which nation won the inaugural World Cup in 1930? Uruguay. US player, Bert Patenaude, was the first player to do what in a
- [The World Cup Quiz](https://rupertcolley.com/non-fiction/the-world-cup-a-short-history/the-world-cup-quiz/) - Try my FIFA World Cup quiz, which accompanies The World Cup: A Short History. The questions relate only to the World Cup Finals, not the qualification stage. Which nation scored the very first FIFA World Cup goal? Which nation won the inaugural World Cup in 1930? US player, Bert Patenaude, was the first player to do
- [Where to Buy](https://rupertcolley.com/where-to-buy-2/) - Audiobooks [table id=1 /] Some titles are also available either as paperback or ebook from: Scribd, 24 Symbols, Books-A-Million, BookMate Blio, Baker & Taylor, Smashwords, and many other online stores. Some titles are also available as ebooks from your local library, freely available with your library card. You can also read them for free via
- [Translation proposal](https://rupertcolley.com/translation-proposal/) - I’m looking for a translator to translate one of my novels, The Woman on the Train, from English to German or French. The novel, 27,700 words long, is set in Occupied France during the Second World War. I’ll be honest – I can’t afford the usual translator rate of about €0.09 per word, as that’d work out
- [The Hungarian Revolution](https://rupertcolley.com/non-fiction/the-hungarian-revolution/) - Sixty years ago, the people of Hungary stood up to Soviet tyranny. In Budapest and throughout the nation, civilians demanded freedom from Soviet oppression and their country's communist government. It was one of the defining moments of the Cold War. The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 constituted the most serious threat to the USSR’s hegemony throughout
- [Battle of the Somme: World War One’s Bloodiest Battle](https://rupertcolley.com/non-fiction/battle-of-the-somme/) - The Battle of the Somme lives in our collective imagination as the epitome of pointless slaughter on the battlefield. A century on, the Somme has come to symbolise the futile horror of trench warfare. The first day of the Somme, 1 July 1916, was the blackest day in British military history – 57,470 casualties, including
- [Rupert Colley and dog talk about 'This Time Tomorrow'](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/this-time-tomorrow/video/) - https://youtu.be/r-hGOucweIU
- [The Unforgiving Sea - extract](https://rupertcolley.com/novels/the-unforgiving-sea/the-unforgiving-sea-extract/) - Prologue A Village in Devon, Southern England, August 1944 I never felt so relieved to be home. I looked in the hallway mirror and thought how I’d aged. What did I expect? But from tonight, I was starting a new life, a quieter, more peaceful existence. I’d had enough adventure to last a lifetime. All
- [The World Cup Quiz - Answers](https://rupertcolley.com/non-fiction/the-world-cup-a-short-history/the-world-cup-quiz/the-world-cup-quiz-answers/) - OK, did you throw away all records, CDs, videos, DVDs and anything else associated with the recording artiste Mariah Carey? Good. The answers to my mega-hard World Cup quiz can be found here. Good luck!
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## Landing Pages

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- [](https://rupertcolley.com/landing-pages/tld2/) - The girls sent to the East Wing never returned the same. No one ever spoke of what happened there. Free for Kindle Unlimited members. Some secrets refuse to stay buried... Two generations marked by an unspeakable past. An unbearable truth buried in Nazi Germany. And the truth is more devastating than anyone could have ever

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