The Hitler Years with Frank McDonough - The London History Festival

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At the beginning of 1940 Germany was at the pinnacle of its power. By May 1945 Hitler was dead and Germany had suffered a disastrous defeat. Hitler had failed to achieve his aim of making Germany a super power and had left her people to cope with the endless shame of the Holocaust.

In his The Hitler Years -Disaster 1940-1945, our guest Professor Frank McDonough charts the dramatic change of fortune for the Third Reich, and challenges long-held accounts of the Holocaust and Germany's ultimate defeat.

Despite Hitler's grand ambitions and the successful early stages of the Third Reich's advances into Europe, Frank McDonough argues that Germany was only ever a middle-ranking power and never truly stood a chance against the combined forces of the Allies.

About the speaker:

Professor Frank McDonough is an internationally renowned expert on the Third Reich. He studied history at Balliol College, Oxford and gained a PhD from Lancaster University. He has written many critically acclaimed books on the Third Reich, including The Gestapo, Hitler and the Rise of the Nazi Party and Sophie Scholl: The Woman Who Defied Hitler.

His The Hitler Years: Triumph 1933-1939 , the first volume in a tandem of books charting the rise and fall of the Third Reich under Hitler's hand, was published in 2019. His latest book, The Hitler Years: Disaster 1940-1945 is the second in the series, and was published by Head of Zeus this year.

Professor McDonough is a popular public speaker and runs one of the most popular history Twitter account in the world! @FXMC1957

He has given lectures in the UK and in countries around the world.

This literary festival aims to bring the work of the finest historians to the widest possible audience.

Established in 2009 and hosted by Kensington Central Library each November, The London History Festival enables you to engage with some of today's most popular and most highly regarded historians.