Roger Moorhouse
Encyclopedia
Stockport
Stockport is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on elevated ground southeast of Manchester city centre, at the point where the rivers Goyt and Tame join and create the River Mersey. Stockport is the largest settlement in the metropolitan borough of the same name...
, Cheshire, he was raised in Hertfordshire and attended Berkhamsted School. Inspired to return to education by the East European Revolutions of 1989
Revolutions of 1989
The Revolutions of 1989 were the revolutions which overthrew the communist regimes in various Central and Eastern European countries.The events began in Poland in 1989, and continued in Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and...
, Moorhouse enrolled in the School of Slavonic and East European Studies
School of Slavonic and East European Studies
The UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies is a school of University College London . It is the largest centre for the study and research of Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, and Russia in the United Kingdom...
of the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
in 1990 to study history and politics. He graduated with an MA in 1994 and has since studied at the universities of Düsseldorf and Strathclyde.
Whilst a student, Moorhouse began working as a researcher for Professor Norman Davies
Norman Davies
Professor Ivor Norman Richard Davies FBA, FRHistS is a leading English historian of Welsh descent, noted for his publications on the history of Europe, Poland, and the United Kingdom.- Academic career :...
. He collaborated with Professor Davies on many of the latter’s recent publications, including Europe: A History
Europe: A History
Europe: A History is a narrative history book by Norman Davies.As Davies notes in the Preface, the book contains little that is original. Primary research wasrarely required. Twelve chapters span the European past from prehistory till the disintegration...
, The Isles: A History
The Isles: A History
The Isles: A History is a narrative history book by Norman Davies.Similar to the earlier Europe: A History, Davies is not trying to present any new history, but does want to tackle what he sees as historiographical biases in the treatment of the history of Britain and Ireland.Ten chapters span the...
, and Rising ’44. This working relationship culminated in 2002 with the publication, in three languages, of a co-authored study of the history of the city of Wrocław (the former German Breslau) entitled Microcosm: Portrait of a Central European City
Microcosm: Portrait of a Central European City
Microcosm: Portrait of a Central European City is a book by Norman Davies and Roger Moorhouse about the history of Wrocław.-Content:The book opens with a description of the siege and fall of German Breslau at the very end of the Second World War. Attacking Red Army reduces many streets of the city...
.
2006 saw the publication of Killing Hitler, Moorhouse’s first solo book. An account of the numerous attempts on Hitler’s life, the book has been published in numerous other languages, including German, Spanish, Chinese, Italian and Japanese. In a CNN news report of 3 September 2011, Killing Hitler was shown on Saadi Gaddafi's desk after he had fled his office in the wake of the collapse of the Gaddafi regime in Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
. Reporter Nic Robertson
Nic Robertson
Nic Robertson is a Senior International Correspondent at CNN.Nic started his career in broadcasting in 1984 within the engineering arm of the UK's Independent Broadcasting Authority He then worked as an engineer with TV-AM until 1989.Nic began his career at CNN in 1989, starting as a satellite...
suggested that Saadi Gaddafi had been reading the book prior to his flight.
Moorhouse's most recent book - entitled Berlin at War - is a social history of Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, which was published in the summer of 2010. Based on first-hand material such as unpublished diaries, memoirs and interviews, the book gives a unique "Berlin-eye view" of the war. 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." "Berlin at War" was listed amongst the books of the year for 2010 by the Daily Telegraph, American Spectator Magazine and others, and was shortlisted for the Hessell-Tiltman Prize
Hessell-Tiltman Prize
The Hessell-Tiltman History Prize is awarded to the best work of non-fiction of historical content covering a period up to and including WWII, and published in the year of the award. The books are to be of high literary merit but not primarily academic. The prize is organized by the United...
for history, where it was cited as "highly commended".
A fluent German speaker, Moorhouse is a specialist in modern German history, particularly Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
and the Third Reich. In this capacity, he is a regular contributor to the BBC History
BBC History (magazine)
BBC History is a magazine devoted to history enthusiasts of all levels of knowledge and interest. Being a British publication, the magazine focuses particularly on British history, but its remit is worldwide...
magazine, a book reviewer for a number of publications - including the Independent on Sunday, the Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
and History Today
History Today
History Today is an illustrated history magazine. Published monthly in London since January 1951, it is the world's leading, and possibly oldest, history magazine. Its successful mission has always been to present serious and authoritative history to as wide a public as possible...
- and an occasional commentator on television and radio.
Moorhouse is also a regular public speaker and has lectured to both academic and non-specialist audiences. In recent years, as well as appearing at the Edinburgh International Book Festival
Edinburgh International Book Festival
The Edinburgh International Book Festival, is a book festival that takes place in the last three weeks of August every year in Charlotte Square, in the centre of Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital...
and the London History Festival, he has been a guest speaker on Discovery Cruises in the Baltic Sea
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
. In 2011, Moorhouse served as a guide and lecturer on an eight-day educational tour of Germany, focusing on the history of the Third Reich, and organised by Historical Trips Ltd. He will lead a similar tour in the summer of 2012.
A member of the British-German Association, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts
Royal Society of Arts
The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce is a British multi-disciplinary institution, based in London. The name Royal Society of Arts is frequently used for brevity...
, Moorhouse is married with two children and lives in Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
.
Books authored
Roger Moorhouse & Norman Davies, Microcosm: Portrait of a Central European City, (Cape, 2002). ISBN 0-224-06243-3 Roger Moorhouse & Norman Davies, Die Blume Europas: Die Geschichte einer mitteleuropäischen Stadt, (Droemer, 2002) Roger Moorhouse & Norman Davies, Mikrokosmos: Portret miasta środkowoeuropejskiego, (Znak, 2002) Roger Moorhouse & Norman Davies, Microcosmo: L'Europa centrale nella storia di une città, (Mondadori, 2005) Roger Moorhouse & Norman Davies, Mikrokosmos: Portrét jednoho středoevropského města, (BB Art, 2006)Roger Moorhouse, Killing Hitler, (Cape, 2006) ISBN 0-224-07121-1 Roger Moorhouse, Killing Hitler, (Bantam, 2006) Roger Moorhouse, Polowanie na Hitlera, (Znak, 2006) Roger Moorhouse, Uccidere Hitler, (Corbaccio, 2006) Roger Moorhouse, Hitler: de Aanslagen, (Niew Amsterdam, 2007) Roger Moorhouse, Atentáty na Hitlera, (BB Art, 2007) Roger Moorhouse, Killing Hitler: Die Attentäter, Die Pläne und warum sie scheiterten, (Marix, 2007) Roger Moorhouse, Matar a Hitler, (Debate, 2008) Roger Moorhouse, Ubiti Hitlera, (Srednja Europa, 2008) Roger Moorhouse, ヒトラー暗殺, (Hakusuisha, 2008) Roger Moorhouse, Uppdrag: Döda Hitler, (Fischer & Co, 2009) Roger Moorhouse, 刺杀希特勒, (Shanghai, 2009) Roger Moorhouse, Quero Matar Hitler, (Ediouro, 2009) Roger Moorhouse, Attentate auf Hitler, (Weltbild, 2010)
Roger Moorhouse, Berlin at War: Life and Death in Hitler's Capital 1939-1945, (Bodley Head, 2010) Roger Moorhouse, Berlin at War, (Basic Books, 2010) Roger Moorhouse, Berlin i Krig, (Dinamo, 2011) Roger Moorhouse, Stolica Hitlera. Życie i śmierć w wojennym Berlinie, (Znak, 2011)
Contributions
- Jak powstało Powstanie '44, Norman Davies, (Znak, Kraków, 2005), Chapter
- The Men Who Tried to Kill Hitler, Roger ManvellRoger ManvellRoger Arnold Manvell was the first director of the British Film Academy , author of many books on films and film-making, and authored and co-authored many books on Nazi Germany, including biographies of Adolf Hitler, Rudolf Hess, Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Göring...
& Heinrich FraenkelHeinrich FraenkelHeinrich Fraenkel was an author and Hollywood writer most notable for his biographies of Nazi war criminals published in the 1960s and 1970s.-Biography:Fraenkel was born in Lissa, Poland...
, (Frontline Books, 2008), Introduction - He Was My Chief: The Memoirs of Adolf Hitler's Secretary, Christa SchroederChrista SchroederChrista Schroeder was one of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler’s personal secretaries before and during World War II.-Early life:...
, (Frontline Books, 2009), Introduction - With Hitler to the End: The Memoir of Hitler's Valet, Heinz LingeHeinz LingeHeinz Linge was an SS officer who served as a valet for German dictator Adolf Hitler.- Early life :Linge was born in Bremen, Germany. Before joining the SS in 1933 he was employed as a bricklayer and was selected by Sepp Dietrich to be one of 117 original bodyguards for Adolf Hitler...
, (Frontline Books, 2009), Introduction - The Celebrated Pedestrian and Other Historical Curiosities, (BBC History, 2009), Contributions
- I was Hitler's Chauffeur: The Memoirs of Erich Kempka, Erich KempkaErich KempkaSS-Obersturmbannführer Erich Kempka served as Adolf Hitler's chauffeur from 1934 to April, 1945. He was SS member #2,803 and served in the Allgemeine SS.-Early life:...
, (Frontline Books, 2010), Introduction - The Hitler I Knew, Otto DietrichOtto DietrichDr. Otto Dietrich was an SS-Obergruppenführer, the Third Reich's Press Chief, and a confidant of Adolf Hitler.-Biography:...
, (Skyhorse Publishing, 2010), Introduction - The Hand of History: An Anthology of Quotes and Commentaries, Michael Leventhal (ed.), (Frontline Books, 2011), Contribution
- While Berlin Burns, Hans-Georg von Studnitz, (Pen & Sword Books, 2011), Introduction (forthcoming)
- The Sniper Anthology, Martin Pegler (Ed.), (Frontline Books, 2011), Chapter on Simo HäyhäSimo HäyhäSimo Häyhä , nicknamed "White Death" by the Red Army, was a Finnish sniper. Using a modified Mosin–Nagant in the Winter War, he has the highest recorded number of confirmed sniper kills - 505 - in any major war....
, (forthcoming) - Hitler was My Friend: The Memoirs of Hitler's Photographer, Heinrich HoffmannHeinrich HoffmannHeinrich Hoffmann was a German photographer best known for his many published photographs of Adolf Hitler.-Early life and career:...
, (Frontline Books, 2011), Introduction (forthcoming)
Academic publications
- German Policy towards the Sudeten QuestionSudetenlandSudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...
1933-36. in Slovo: A journal of contemporary Russian and East European Affairs, (London, 1995)
- Przesunięcie wschodniej granicy III Rzeszy i ‘transfer ludności’ ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem kwestii Śląska z angielskiego punktu widzenia in Postanowienia i konsekwencje konferenji w Jałcie i Poczdamie, (Gliwice-Opole, 2003)
- Перемещение восточной границы <Третьего рейха> и переселение населения (ангпийская точка эрения) in ЕВРОПА (Warsaw, 2004)
- Adolf's Assassin: Henning von TresckowHenning von TresckowGeneralmajor Herrmann Karl Robert "Henning" von Tresckow was a Major General in the German Wehrmacht who organized German resistance against Adolf Hitler. He attempted to assassinate Hitler in March 1943 and drafted the Valkyrie plan for a coup against the German government...
in BBC History Magazine, April 2006.
- The Genesis of the Polish CorridorPolish CorridorThe Polish Corridor , also known as Danzig Corridor, Corridor to the Sea or Gdańsk Corridor, was a territory located in the region of Pomerelia , which provided the Second Republic of Poland with access to the Baltic Sea, thus dividing the bulk of Germany from the province of East...
in Conan Fischer & Alan Sharp (eds.), After the Versailles Treaty, (Routledge, London, 2008)
- A Good German?: the questionable sainthood of Claus von Stauffenberg in History TodayHistory TodayHistory Today is an illustrated history magazine. Published monthly in London since January 1951, it is the world's leading, and possibly oldest, history magazine. Its successful mission has always been to present serious and authoritative history to as wide a public as possible...
, January 2009.
- The Nazi Serial Killer: the crimes of Paul OgorzowPaul OgorzowPaul Ogorzow , also known as the S-Bahn murderer, was a Berlin-based serial killer and rapist in Nazi Germany, responsible for several deaths and attempted murders during a ten-month period between September 1940 and July 1941, when he was finally apprehended and executed at Plötzensee...
in BBC History Magazine, May 2009.
- Peter the Wild BoyPeter the Wild BoyPeter the Wild Boy was a mentally handicapped boy from Hannover in northern Germany who was found in 1725 living wild in the woods near Hamelin , the town of Pied Piper legend...
in History TodayHistory TodayHistory Today is an illustrated history magazine. Published monthly in London since January 1951, it is the world's leading, and possibly oldest, history magazine. Its successful mission has always been to present serious and authoritative history to as wide a public as possible...
, April 2010.
- Beyond Belief: Berliners and the Holocaust in History TodayHistory TodayHistory Today is an illustrated history magazine. Published monthly in London since January 1951, it is the world's leading, and possibly oldest, history magazine. Its successful mission has always been to present serious and authoritative history to as wide a public as possible...
, September, 2010.
- Happy Birthday Mein Führer in Military History Quarterly, Autumn, 2010.
TV/DVD/radio appearances
- Today ProgrammeToday programmeToday is BBC Radio 4's long-running early morning news and current affairs programme, now broadcast from 6.00 am to 9.00 am Monday to Friday, and 7.00 am to 9.00 am on Saturdays. It is also the most popular programme on Radio 4 and one of the BBC's most popular programmes across its radio networks...
, (BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
, 21 April 2006) (studio interview) - Newstalk Ireland, (15 June 2006) (interview)
- Revealed: The Family That Defied Hitler, (Channel 5, 2007) (interview)
- BBC News 24, 7 August 2007, (studio interview)
- Operation ValkyrieOperation ValkyrieOperation Valkyrie was an emergency continuity of government operations plan developed in Nazi Germany for the Territorial Reserve Army of Germany to execute and implement in case of a general breakdown in civil order of the nation...
: The Stauffenberg Plot to Kill Hitler, (The History ChannelThe History ChannelHistory, formerly known as The History Channel, is an American-based international satellite and cable TV channel that broadcasts a variety of reality shows and documentary programs including those of fictional and non-fictional historical content, together with speculation about the future.-...
, 2008) (interview) - 42 Ways to Kill Hitler (US title) / Killing Hitler (UK title), (National Geographic ChannelNational Geographic ChannelNational Geographic Channel, also commercially abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo, is a subscription television channel that airs non-fiction television programs produced by the National Geographic Society. Like History and the Discovery Channel, the channel features documentaries with factual...
, 2009) (interview) - The Counterfeiter's Tale, (BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
, 13 March 2009) (interview) - Newstalk Ireland, (17 August 2009) (interview)
- KERA (FM)KERA (FM)KERA is the National Public Radio affiliate station for North Texas. Based in Dallas, Texas the station's main transmitter is located in Cedar Hill, Texas with translators that serve Tyler , the Sherman/Denison area , and Wichita Falls...
, Think, (23 November 2010) (interview) - Excess Baggage, (BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
, 29 January 2011) (studio interview)
Awards and shortlisting
- Awarded an Honorary Diploma from the City of Wroclaw, 2002
- Shortlisted for the Hessell-Tiltman History PrizeHessell-Tiltman PrizeThe Hessell-Tiltman History Prize is awarded to the best work of non-fiction of historical content covering a period up to and including WWII, and published in the year of the award. The books are to be of high literary merit but not primarily academic. The prize is organized by the United...
, 2010