‘Oldfield’s thoroughly researched and fascinating historical biography explores the lives of many of the 2, 600 citizens who attracted Hitler’s ire, ranging from high-profile entertainers and writers to those naturalised refugees who doggedly resisted the Nazis from afar’ – Observer
In 1939, the Gestapo created a list of names: the Britons whose removal would be the Nazis’ priority in the event of a successful invasion. Who were they? What had they done to provoke Germany? For the first time, the historian Sybil Oldfield uncovers their stories and reveals why the Nazis feared their influence.
Those on the hitlist – many of them naturalised refugees – were some of Britain’s most gifted and humane inhabitants. They included writers, humanitarians, religious leaders, scientists, artists, and social reformers.
By examining these targets of Nazi hatred, Oldfield not only sheds light on the Gestapo worldview but also movingly reveals a network of truly exemplary Britons: mavericks, moral visionaries and unsung heroes.
Tentang Penulis
Sybil Oldfield is half German and half English. Her grandmother was a pacifist feminist socialist who was placed unofficially under Schreibverbot during the Nazi dictatorship. Her mother was classified as an ‘enemy alien naturalized by marriage’ in Britain after WWII broke out. Oldfield is now Emeritus Reader in English at the University of Sussex and a researcher for The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. A nuclear pacifist, she has campaigned on the psychological disarmament side of the anti-war movement since the 1960s.