The Beetle became the most produced—and most popular—car ever made, dethroning industry legend Henry Ford and his Model T.  

On This Day in History

With More Than 15 Million Made, This Iconic Car Became the World’s Most Popular on This Day in 1972

Blockbuster movies and the Beatles helped popularize Volkswagen’s uniquely shaped and affordable little car

The exhibition showcases political cartoons dating from 1909 to 2003.

See Winston Churchill Through the Eyes of the Political Cartoonists He Inspired

A new exhibition at London’s Imperial War Museum brings together political cartoons from around the world that celebrate and satirize the wartime prime minister

Edward VIII abdicated the throne to marry Wallis Simpson. Here, the couple is pictured in the Bahamas, where Edward served as governor between 1940 and 1945.

On This Day in History

When a British King Stunned the Royal Family by Abdicating the Throne to Marry a Divorced American Socialite

Scandal dogged Edward VIII, a suspected Nazi sympathizer, even after he relinquished his crown to marry Wallis Simpson, the woman he loved

Elliot Heffernan (left) and Saoirse Ronan (right) portray a mother and son in Steve McQueen's new film, Blitz.

Based on a True Story

The Real Story Behind Apple TV+’s ‘Blitz,’ a New Steve McQueen Movie About Britain’s Everyday World War II Heroes

Starring Saoirse Ronan as a young mother, the film celebrates Londoners’ resilience in the face of an eight-month Nazi aerial bombing campaign

A woman enters the secret annex at the Anne Frank House Museum in Amsterdam. The new exhibition in New York will be the first full-scale replica.

Walk Through a Full-Scale Replica of the Secret Annex Where Anne Frank’s Family Took Shelter During the Holocaust

Featuring more than 100 original artifacts, a new immersive exhibition in New York City will explore the young Jewish diarist’s life and legacy

Kate Winslet as Lee Miller in Lee, a new film directed by Ellen Kuras

Based on a True Story

The Real Story Behind the ‘Lee’ Movie and Lee Miller, the Legendary Surrealist Photographer and World War II Journalist Who Inspired It

In a new biopic starring Kate Winslet, Miller’s many lives—as an artist, model, muse, cook and war correspondent—need little embellishment

A 1912 postcard featuring the swastika as a symbol of good fortune

How the Swastika, an Ancient Symbol of Good Fortune Used Around the World, Became the Nazi Logo

Archaeologists have found the distinctive design on artifacts from India, Europe, Africa, China and the Americas. When Adolf Hitler co-opted it, its meaning changed forever

Clarke and his team created forces that could be found nowhere except in the meticulous files of A Force and, crucially, in German intelligence reports.

To Trick the Nazis, This Master of Deception Invented Fake Fleets and Armies

During World War II, British officer Dudley Clarke led A Force, a Cairo-based military unit that fed false information to the Germans

A grand jury tasked with investigating the riots argued that the violence outside Peekskill “was basically neither antisemitic nor anti-Negro in character.”

Untold Stories of American History

The Peekskill Riots Revealed the Racism and Antisemitism Hidden Beneath the Surface of the Anti-Communist Movement

In the summer of 1949, World War II veterans protested a pair of concerts held by Paul Robeson, a Black singer and civil rights activist who expressed support for communist causes

“Paris must not fall into the hands of the enemy,” Adolf Hitler told his top general in Paris, “or if it does, he must find there nothing but a field of ruins.”

During World War II, the Liberation of Paris Saved the French Capital From Destruction

Adolf Hitler wanted Paris razed. Dwight D. Eisenhower wanted his troops to stay out of the city. In August 1944, an uprising by French resistance fighters forced the Allies to intervene

Greek actor Mary Mina played the role of the high priestess at the ceremony, which took place in Olympia in front of the ruins of the temple of Hera.

The Paris Olympics

The Olympic Torch Relay Began in Nazi Germany

After a torch-lighting ceremony this week, the Olympic flame began its long journey from Olympia to Paris

The Zone of Interest envisions the everyday lives of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and his family, rarely venturing beyond their villa’s borders to acknowledge the atrocities unfolding outside their door.

Based on a True Story

The Real History Behind ‘The Zone of Interest’ and Rudolf Höss

Jonathan Glazer’s new film uses the Auschwitz commandant and his family as a vehicle for examining humans’ capacity for evil

Child refugees from Germany and Austria at the Amsterdam Burgerweeshuis orphanage. Truus Wijsmuller stands at far left, looking at the children she helped save.

The Unsung Hero Who Saved Thousands of Children During the Holocaust

Truus Wijsmuller spirited Jewish refugees to safety and stood up to the architect of Adolf Hitler’s “Final Solution”

Hitler stands with co-conspirators Alfred Rosenberg and Friedrich Weber during the Beer Hall Putsch in November 1923.

Before He Rose to Power, Adolf Hitler Staged a Coup and Went to Prison

The Beer Hall Putsch was a spectacular failure. It also set the stage for Nazi Germany

Patrons at the Eldorado, a popular LGBTQ cabaret in Berlin during the Weimar years

New Research Reveals How the Nazis Targeted Transgender People

Last year, a German court acknowledged the possibility that trans people were persecuted by the Nazis

Arthur Brand poses with The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring, painted by Vincent van Gogh in 1884.

Cool Finds

Stolen van Gogh Painting Worth Millions Returned in an Ikea Bag

Arthur Brand, the “Indiana Jones of the art world,” negotiated the recovery of an 1884 canvas taken from a Dutch museum in March 2020

A German general ordered his troops to “destroy Viannos and promptly execute all males beyond the age of 16, as well as everyone who was arrested in the countryside, irrespective of age or gender.”

When the Nazis Massacred Greek Civilians to Send a Warning to Those Who Resisted

Eighty years ago, German soldiers killed an estimated 500 Cretans in Viannos and Ierapetra in retaliation for an attack by local partisans

In 1946, the British garrison welcomed the returning residents of Alderney, who had evacuated prior to the Nazi occupation in 1940. 

How Many Died in Nazi Concentration Camps on British Soil?

The U.K. is investigating the death toll on the island of Alderney, which German soldiers occupied in 1940

In January 1923, a dollar cost 17,000 marks. In December, the exchange rate topped out at 4.2 trillion marks to the dollar.

How Hyperinflation Heralded the Fall of German Democracy

In 1923, the collapse of the Weimar Republic’s economy impoverished millions and gave Adolf Hitler his first chance at seizing power

Julius and Leni Löwin, a Jewish couple who met in Oberstdorf, with World War I hero Ernst Jünger

How the Nazi Regime Upended the Lives of These Bavarian Villagers

A new book draws on long-overlooked sources to chronicle how Oberstdorf’s residents navigated the rise—and dictatorship—of Adolf Hitler

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