Europe Audiobooks | Travel

The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation

‘Hums with living history, human warmth and indignation’ New York Times Less a mystery unsolved than a secret well kept The mystery has haunted generations since the Second World War: Who betrayed Anne Frank and her family? And why? Now, thanks to radical new technology and the obsession of a retired FBI agent, this book offers an answer. Rosemary Sullivan unfolds the story in a gripping, moving narrative. Over thirty million people have read The Diary of a Young Girl, the journal teenaged Anne Frank kept while living in an attic with her family and four other people in Amsterdam during World War II, until the Nazis arrested them and sent them to a concentration camp. But despite the many works – journalism, books, plays and novels – devoted to Anne’s story, none has ever conclusively explained how these eight people managed to live in hiding undetected for over two years – and who or what finally brought the Nazis to their door. With painstaking care, retired FBI agent Vincent Pankoke and a team of indefatigable investigators pored over tens of thousands of pages of documents – some never before seen – and interviewed scores of descendants of people familiar with the Franks. Utilising methods developed by the FBI, the Cold Case Team painstakingly pieced together the months leading to the infamous arrest – and came to a shocking conclusion. The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation is the riveting story of their mission. Rosemary Sullivan introduces us to the investigators, explains the behaviour of both the captives and their captors and profiles a group of suspects. All the while, she vividly brings to life wartime Amsterdam: a place where no matter how wealthy, educated, or careful you were, you never knew whom you could trust.

Rosemary Sullivan (Author), Julia Whelan (Narrator)

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The Berlin Mission: The American Who Resisted Nazi Germany from Within

An unknown story of an unlikely hero--the US consul who best analyzed the threat posed by Nazi Germany and predicted the horrors to come In 1929, Raymond Geist went to Berlin as a consul and handled visas for emigrants to the US. Just before Hitler came to power, Geist expedited the exit of Albert Einstein. Once the Nazis began to oppress Jews and others, Geist's role became vitally important. It was Geist who extricated Sigmund Freud from Vienna and Geist who understood the scale and urgency of the humanitarian crisis. Even while hiding his own homosexual relationship with a German, Geist fearlessly challenged the Nazi police state whenever it abused Americans in Germany or threatened US interests. He made greater use of a restrictive US immigration quota and secured exit visas for hundreds of unaccompanied children. All the while, he maintained a working relationship with high Nazi officials such as Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich, and Hermann Göring. While US ambassadors and consuls general cycled in and out, the indispensable Geist remained in Berlin for a decade. An invaluable analyst and problem solver, he was the first American official to warn explicitly that what lay ahead for Germany's Jews was what would become known as the Holocaust.

Richard Breitman (Author), Neil Hellegers (Narrator)

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The Berlin Airlift: The History and Legacy of the First Major Crisis of the Cold War

In the wake of World War II, the European continent was devastated, and the conflict left the Soviet Union and the United States as uncontested superpowers. This ushered in over 45 years of the Cold War, and a political alignment of Western democracies against the Communist Soviet bloc that produced conflicts pitting allies on each sides fighting, even as the American and Soviet militaries never engaged each other. Though it never got “hot” between the two superpowers, the Cold War was a tense era until the dissolution of the USSR, and nothing symbolized the split more than the division of Berlin. Berlin had been a flashpoint even before World War II ended, and the city was occupied by the different Allies even as the close of the war turned them into adversaries. If anyone wondered whether the Cold War would dominate geopolitics, any hopes that it wouldn’t were dashed by the Soviets’ blockade of West Berlin in April 1948, ostensibly to protest the currency being used in West Berlin but unquestionably aiming to extend their control over Germany’s capital. By cutting off all access via roads, rail, and water, the Soviets hoped to force the Allies out, and at the same time, Stalin’s action would force a tense showdown that would test their mettle. In response to the blockade, the British, Americans, Canadians, and other Allies had no choice but to either acquiesce or break the blockade by air, hoping (correctly) that the Soviets wouldn’t dare shoot down planes being used strictly for civilian purposes. Over the course of the next year, over 200,000 flights were made to bring millions of tons of crucial supplies to West Berlin, with the Allies maintaining a pace of landing a plane in West Berlin every 30 seconds at the height of the Airlift. As the success of the Berlin Airlift became clear, the Soviets realized the blockade was ineffective, and both sides were able to save face by negotiating an end to the blockade in April 1949, with the Soviets ending it officially on May 12. The Airlift would technically continue until September, but for all intents and purposes, the first crisis of the Cold War had come to an end, and most importantly, the confrontation remained “cold.” For the next decade, West Berlin remained a haven for highly-educated East Germans who wanted freedom and a better life in the West, and this “brain drain” was threatening the survival of the East German economy. In order to stop this, access to the West through West Berlin had to be cut off, so in August 1961, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev authorized East German leader Walter Ulbricht to begin construction of what would become known as the Berlin Wall. The wall, begun on Sunday August 13, would eventually surround the city, in spite of global condemnation, and the Berlin Wall itself would become the symbol for Communist repression in the Eastern Bloc. The Berlin Airlift: The History and Legacy of the First Major Crisis of the Cold War chronicles the history that led to the Soviet blockade and the famous relief efforts undertaken to beat it.

Charles River Editors (Author), Colin Fluxman (Narrator)

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The Beautiful Race: The Story of the Giro d'Italia

Born of tumult in 1909, the Giro d'Italia helped unite a nation. Since then, it has reflected it's home country—the Giro's capricious and unpredictable nature matches the passions and extremes of Italy itself. A desperately hard race through a beautiful country, the Giro has bred characters and stories that dramatize the shifting culture and society of its home. There was Alfonsina Strada, who cropped her hair and raced against the men in 1924 and Ottavio Bottecchia, expected to challenge for the winner's Maglia Rosa, the famed pink jersey, in 1928, until he was killed on a training ride—most likely by Mussolini's Black Shirts. And what would a book about the Giro d'Italia be without Fausto Coppi, the metropolitan playboy with amphetamines in his veins, guided by a mystic blind masseur, who seemed to glide up the peaks. But let us not forget his arch rival Gino Bartali—humble, pious, and brave. It recently emerged that he smuggled papers for persecuted Jewish Italians. Then there is the Giro's most tragic hero, Marco Pantani, born to climb but fated to lose. Halted only by World Wars, the Giro has been contested for over a century, and The Beautiful Race is a richly written celebration of this legendary race.

Colin O'brien (Author), Carlotta Brentan (Narrator)

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The Battle of White Mountain: The History and Legacy of the First Major Battle of the Thirty Years’

It has been famously pointed out that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, but it was also not an empire in the sense people expect when hearing the term. In theory, the emperor was the highest prince in Christendom, and his dominion extended the length and breadth of Western Europe. The tensions between the Holy Roman Empire and Church over the power to invest bishops with authority led to decades of civil war in Germany on the way to establishing the relationship between Church and State, elevating the status of the papacy and weakening the Holy Roman Empire. The Thirty Years' War was one of the most horrific conflicts in history, resulting in the deaths of nearly two-thirds of Germany's population, and the Battle of White Mountain in 1620 was the first major battle of that war. The battle was fought mainly due to Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II’s dealings with the Bohemians and their new king, Frederick of the Palatinate, who Ferdinand regarded as illegitimate. It was also partly a struggle between the centralizing attempts of the Habsburg dynasty conflicting with the traditional regional autonomy that existed within the legislative institutions called the Estates. What gave it an emotional element was the enmity between Bohemian Protestantism and Ferdinand II’s zealous Catholicism, and that would help draw in several European powers. At the Battle of White Mountain, the armies of the Bohemian Confederation and the Habsburgs met each other near Prague, and the combatants included officers and soldiers from nearly every nation in Europe, including the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Poland, Bohemia, Moravia, Bavaria, Italy, Spain, Hungary, Transylvania, England, Scotland, and Ireland. The decisive result would permanently affect the course of the conflict over the coming decades, and with it the fate of modern Europe.

Charles River Editors (Author), Jim D. Johnston (Narrator)

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The Battle of Vienna (1683): The History and Legacy of the Decisive Conflict between the Ottoman Tur

Toward the end of the 17th century, the preeminent Islamic power in the world was the Ottoman Empire. From lowly beginnings as a vassal of the Anatolian Sultanate of Rum Osman I, from whom the empire was named, it expanded into the lands of the Christian Byzantine Empire, and by 1683, the year of the Battle of Vienna, the Ottomans ruled Asia Minor, the Middle East (with the exception of Iran), northern Africa to the borders of Morocco, the Balkan Peninsula up to the lands of modern Poland, as well as portions of Poland, Ukraine, Crimea, and Georgia. The sultan was styled "His Imperial Majesty the Padishah (Emperor), Commander of the Faithful and Successor to the Prophet of the Lord of the Universe." He was considered by his subjects to be the Caliph, the supreme leader of the faithful throughout the world. The duty of holy jihad was vested by the umma in his hands, and the sultans had successfully overpowered the forces of the Christian princes time and time again. The long conflict between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans would finally come to a head in 1683 outside the city of Vienna, the center of Habsburg power in central Europe. It would be no exaggeration to say that Vienna was one of the most important battles not only in the conflict between Islam and Christendom, but in the entire history of the world. If the Habsburgs had lost that battle, it is highly likely that Islamic civilization rather than Christian would dominate much of Europe.

Charles River Editors (Author), Colin Fluxman (Narrator)

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The Battle of Towton: The History and Legacy of the Biggest Battle during the Wars of the Roses

When the Battle of Towton took place on Palm Sunday in 1461 near a small village in Yorkshire, it was the largest and bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil. Towton was one of the battles of the Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars ravaging England from 1455-1487. These marked the longest period England has been in unrest, surpassing the 12th century civil war between King Stephen and Empress Matilda (Maud), which lasted 15 years. Today, roses are a sign of love and luxury, but for over 30 years, they provided the symbols for two houses at war for control of the English throne. Thousands of people died and many more were injured fighting beneath the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster, and the noble families ruling England tore each other apart in a struggle that was as bitter as it was bloody. Though what followed was a period of strong rule under the Tudors monarchs, it ultimately came at a terrible cost, and even then, it was through Elizabeth of York that the Tudor line received its legitimacy. After all, while Henry VII won his throne in battle, Elizabeth of York was the daughter of King Edward IV of England, a Yorkist monarch. Despite their limited social and economic impact, the political and personal dramas of the Wars of the Roses have ensured that they are well remembered and still part of the popular imagination.

Charles River Editors (Author), Colin Fluxman (Narrator)

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The Battle of Tours: The History and Legacy of the Decisive Battle Between the Moors and Franks in F

While the Moors have always been associated with Spain due to their lengthy stay on the Iberian Peninsula, the most famous battle they were involved in was actually fought in modern France. While the Franks were consolidating a kingdom there, Muslim forces were pushing out of North Africa and into the Iberian Peninsula in the early 8th century, and by the dawn of the 730s, the Umayyad dynasty had expanded its territory from the Atlantic to the Pyrenees, a series of seasonally snow-capped mountains in Europe that forms a border between the nations of Spain and France. This would lead to Charles Martel's most famous military victory came at the Battle of Tours, also called the Battle of Poitiers, on October 10, 732. At this battle, a united Frankish force decisively defeated the invading Umayyad Caliphate, making it one of the most important in all the Middle Ages for stemming the advancement of the Islamic forces in Europe.[1] As historian William E. Watson put it, "Had Charles Martel suffered at Tours-Poitiers the fate of King Roderick at the Rio Barbate, it is doubtful that a 'do-nothing' sovereign of the Merovingian realm could have later succeeded where his talented major domus had failed. Indeed, as Charles was the progenitor of the Carolingian line of Frankish rulers and grandfather of Charlemagne, one can even say with a degree of certainty that the subsequent history of the West would have proceeded along vastly different currents had 'Abd ar-Rahman been victorious at Tours-Poitiers in 732." Nearly 1,300 years later, the battle between the Christian Franks and the Muslim Umayyads still fascinates Westerners, as the idea of Muslims and Christians fighting each other in the heartland of France seems incongruous. Given that the battle ended the Muslim invasion of France, it has been compared with the 1529 and 1683 Ottoman sieges of Vienna as a make-or-break moment that determined whether the heart of Western Europe would become Muslim.

Charles River Editors (Author), Colin Fluxman (Narrator)

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The Battle of the Golden Spurs: The History of the Franco-Flemish War’s Most Famous Battle

In the time period between the fall of Rome and the spread of the Renaissance across the European continent, many of today’s European nations were formed, the Catholic Church rose to great prominence, some of history’s most famous wars occurred, and a social class system was instituted that lasted over 1,000 years. A lot of activity took place during a period frequently labeled derogatively as the “Dark Ages,” and while that period of time is mostly referred to as the “Middle Ages” instead of the Dark Ages today, it has still retained the stigma of being a sort of lost period of time in which Western civilization made no worthwhile progress after the advances of the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome. Somewhat ironically, the one aspect of the Middle Ages that has been romanticized is medieval warfare. The Middle Ages have long sparked people’s imaginations thanks to imagery of armored knights battling on horseback and armies of men trying to breach the walls of formidable castles, but what is generally forgotten is that medieval warfare was constantly adapting to the times as leaders adopted new techniques and technology, and common infantry became increasingly important throughout the period. The changes became most evident at the beginning of the 14th century, when the French army fought rebellious forces from Flanders in the Battle of the Golden Spurs on July 11, 1302. Though the battle is mostly forgotten today, it was one of medieval Europe’s most important battles because the Flemish army, consisting almost entirely of infantry, defeated the French forces and their heavily armored cavalry. The battle marked the end of the feudal era and shifted the military focus to infantry armed with pikes or spears. Over 700 years later, the date of the battle is a national holiday in Belgium, and though it did not establish an independent state, the victory certainly set the Flemish people on the road to independence.

Charles River Editors (Author), Daniel Houle (Narrator)

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The Battle of the Boyne: The History of the Battle that Ended James II’s Attempt to Reclaim the Thro

The striking saga of the Glorious Revolution is one that continues to fascinate historians around the world today. Some chroniclers have referred to these events as the “Bloodless Revolution,” but other historians say otherwise. The ruthless game of politics that William of Orange and England’s King James II played may have been somewhat bloodless in comparison to history's greatest rebellions, but the rebels, soldiers, and other pawns who lost their lives along the way must not be forgotten. The revolution would also pave the path for a series of bloody wars between England and Scotland, the result of which has left quite a legacy of its own. Furthermore, it’s important to remember that James did try to return to England, and there would be two more years of war before James II gave up the quest to regain the throne. On July 1, 1690, the famous Battle of the Boyne was fought near the town of Drogheda, about five miles west of Baltray. The combatants were the supporters of King James II and King William III, both claiming to be the lawful sovereigns of England, Scotland, and Ireland. The conflict was part of a broader struggle for the destiny of the British Isles, and though it was not the decisive battle of the war, it is the most famous, the commemoration of which still fans tensions between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. In its aftermath, James II would again leave the British Isles, this time for good.

Charles River Editors (Author), Kc Wayman (Narrator)

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The Battle of Sluys: The History and Legacy of the First Major Naval Battle of the Hundred Years’ Wa

Although it ended over 550 years ago, the Hundred Years’ War still looms large in the historical consciousness of England and France, even if the name of the famous war is a misnomer. Actually a series of separate conflicts between the English and French monarchies, interspersed with periods of peace, its historical image is an odd one, in part because its origins were based on royal claims that dated back centuries and the English and French remained adversaries for nearly 400 years after it ended. That said, the war was transformative in many respects, and the impact it had on the geopolitical situation of Europe cannot be overstated. While some might think of the war as being a continuation of the feudal tradition of knights and peasants, the Hundred Years’ War revolutionized Western European warfare, and it truly helped to usher in the concept of nationalism on the continent. In England, it is remembered as a period of grandeur and success, even though the English lost the war and huge swathes of territory with it, while the French remember it as a strategic victory that ensured the continued independence of France and the denial of English hegemony. The legacy of the war has lived on ever since, helping determine how England became politically severed from the continent, how the knightly chivalric tradition slid into irrelevance, and how battlefield dominance can still leave a nation a loser in war. At the same time, the English forged a reputation for naval superiority, and one of their first demonstrations came at the Battle of Sluys. The town of Sluys (in Dutch Sluis and in French l’Ecluse) is located on the west coast of the region of Zeelandic Flanders in the province of Zeeland in the Netherlands. It has a population of about 23,000 and is relatively isolated, but its main claim to fame today is being the site of one of the first military encounters of the Hundred Years’ War in 1340.

Charles River Editors (Author), Colin Fluxman (Narrator)

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The Battle of Ravenna: The History of the Most Famous Battle of the Italian Wars

In 1494, there were five sovereign regional powers in Italy: Milan, Venice, Florence, the Papal States and Naples. In 1536, only one remained: Venice. These decades of conflict precipitated great anxiety among Western thinkers, and Italians responded to the fragmentation of Latin Christendom, the end of self-governance for Italians, and the beginning of the early modern era in various ways. They were always heavily influenced by the lived experience of warfare between large Christian armies on the peninsula. The diplomatic and military history of this 30-year period is a complex one that one eminent Renaissance historian, Lauro Martines, has described as 'best told by a computer, so many and tangled are the treatises, negotiations and battles.' At the same time, the fighting went in tandem with the Renaissance and was influenced by it. Before 1494, death tolls were counted in hundreds rather than thousands, but that would change over the next generation, and among the many battles fought, few stood out like the Battle of Ravenna in 1512. Ravenna is an ancient city in northern Italy on the Adriatic Coast that replaced Rome as capital of the Western Roman Empire for much of the 5th century and continued to serve as a regional center for its successor states, including the Ostrogoths, Byzantines, and Papal States. On April 11 of that year, two great armies met near Ravenna, which had been the site of conflict at least six times before on account of its strategic importance. It was a well-protected city with connections to rich Mediterranean ports, and it guarded the routes to central and southern Italy. Over 44,000 troops gathered, a vast number for the time, to fight over Italy’s destiny, which had become important to France, Austria, and Spain, the great powers of the time.

Charles River Editors (Author), Kc Wayman (Narrator)

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