About the Author
Roger Moorhouse
I studied history and politics at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies of the University of London in the early 1990s, graduating with an MA in 1994. Since then, I studied at the universities of Düsseldorf and Strathclyde, and I currently teach a course on 20th Century Totalitarianism at the College of Europe in Warsaw.
I began my writing career working for Professor Norman Davies, collaborating with him on many of his recent publications, including “Europe: A History”, “The Isles: A History”, and “Rising ’44”. This working relationship culminated in 2002 with the publication of our co-authored study of the history of the city of Wrocław (the former German Breslau) entitled “Microcosm: Portrait of a Central European City”.
In 2006, my first solo book appeared: “Killing Hitler” is an account of the numerous attempts on Hitler’s life, and seeks to place the likes of Georg Elser, Henning von Tresckow and Hans Oster alongside Claus von Stauffenberg in the narrative.
My next book “Berlin at War” was published in 2010. A social history of Berlin during World War Two, it seeks to give a “Berlin-eye view” of the war by using first-hand material such as unpublished diaries, memoirs and an extensive programme of interviews with Berliners of the wartime generation. Writing in the Financial Times, Andrew Roberts said of it that: “Few books on the war genuinely increase the sum of our collective knowledge of this exhaustively covered period, but this one does.” It was shortlisted for the Hessell-Tiltman Prize in 2011.
My book “The Devils’ Alliance”, which was published in August 2014, is a history of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, one of the few remaining unexplored areas in the history of World War Two. Published to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the Pact’s signature, it was described by one reviewer as “grim and compelling”. It was a top-ten best-seller in Denmark and Poland.
“First to Fight: The Polish War 1939”, appeared in the autumn of 2019, and is an examination of the September Campaign of 1939, one of the least understood military campaigns of World War Two in Europe. It was published in the US as “Poland 1939, and in Poland as “Polska 1939”. Very pleasingly, it was awarded the History Prize of the Polish Foreign Ministry in 2020.
My most recent book is “The Forgers”, and it is the story of the Lados Group; a group of Polish diplomats and Jewish activists who tried to save Jews during the Holocaust by forging Latin American passports. It has already appeared in the US and in Poland – as “Paszporty Zycia” – and I hope to see more foreign editions in due course.
I am currently writing a book about the U-boat war…