In this episode of "Keen On", Andrew is joined by Laurence Rees, the author of "Hitler and Stalin", to discuss the regimes of history's most notorious dictators.
Laurence Rees is a former Head of BBC TV History Programmes, as well as the founder, writer and producer of WW2History.com, which won 'Best in Class' awards in both the Education and Reference categories at the Interactive Media Awards.
His latest book, 'Hitler and Stalin: The Tyrants and the Second World War', was published by Viking/Penguin in October 2020. It was described as 'always compelling' by the Times, 'impressive' by the Daily Telegraph, and praised by the Times Literary Supplement as 'brilliantly' showing how 'Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin were blood brothers'.
For the last thirty years he has specialized in writing books and making television documentaries about both the Second World War and the Third Reich. His work includes the BBC television series and books: 'Nazis: a Warning from History' (1997); 'War of the Century' (1999); 'Horror in the East' (2001); 'Auschwitz, the Nazis and the 'Final Solution'' (2005); 'World War Two: Behind Closed Doors' (2008) and 'The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler (2012)'. His ninety minute feature length documentary, 'Touched by Auschwitz', transmitted on BBC2 in 2015.
In 2006 he won the British Book Award for history book of the year for 'Auschwitz: the Nazis and the 'Final Solution'' - a work that is also the world's bestselling history of the camp. His many television awards include a BAFTA, a Grierson Award, a Broadcasting Press Guild Award, a BANFF festival award, a Broadcast Award, a George Foster Peabody Award, two International Documentary Awards and two Emmys. In New York in 2009 he received the 'Lifetime Achievement Award' from 'History Makers', the worldwide congress of Historical and Current Affairs programme makers.
In 2005 he gave the annual public lecture at the House of Lords for the Holocaust Educational Trust, and also in 2005, he presented an analysis of his work - 'Inside the Nazi State' - on UK TV History.
Laurence Rees was educated at Solihull School and Oxford University. He left the BBC in 2008, and in 2009 he was appointed a Visiting Senior Fellow in the International History Department at the London School of Economics and Political Science, London University.
He was awarded an honorary doctorate for services to history by the University of Sheffield in 2005, and an honorary doctorate from the Open University for services to Arts and Sciences in 2011.
He gave the 2011 Humanities lecture at the University of Kansas, the 2012 Tans memorial lecture at the University of Maastricht, the 2015 keynote lecture at the HET Ambassadors' conference in Westminster, the 2017 annual Public History lecture at the LSE and the 2017 Mervyn Smith memorial lecture at the Cape Town Holocaust Centre.
Laurence Rees on Hitler, Stalin and Dictatorship