War and Conflict Subject Specialist Network

Clare Lawlor, from IWM’s Public Engagement and Learning team, shares the story of a red jumper that makes up part of the new Holocaust Galleries at IWM London. She explains what this simple artefact can tell us about a young woman’s experiences during the Holocaust.

Operation Weserübung, the German invasion of neutral Denmark and Norway, took place between April 9 and June 10, 1940. Weserübung was referred to as “the military measures for the protection of the neutrality of Denmark and Norway”. Katherine Quinlan-Flatter, journalist and historian, shares some of her research into how German newspapers during the Second World War reported the Norwegian campaign in 1940.

Travel the world and take a trip back in time with this colourful trailer highlighting rarely seen and oft-sun-soaked Central Office of Information films, newly digitised thanks to IWMs five-year preservation project Digital Futures. Shared across The National Archives and the British Film Institute’s social media platforms, as well as IWM's digital platforms, this trailer is part of this year's cross-collections collaborative project ‘COI 75’ (#COI75, #Collections United).

Eighty years ago this year, on 22 June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa). The aim was to win Lebensraum ('living space') in the East, and was to be a ‘war of annihilation’ targeting the Jews and Roma living there. By the end of 1942, at least 1.1 million Jewish men, women and children had been murdered in mass shootings. IWM Curator Lauren Willmott shares details about how these events are represented in the new Holocaust Galleries at IWM London.

On 18 December 1940, Adolf Hitler ordered Operation Barbarossa, Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union to win Lebensraum ('living space') in the East and to destroy Jewish Bolshevism. The campaign began on 22 June 1941, and caused millions of military and civilian casualties. German historian and journalist Katherine Quinlan-Flatter talks about the first few weeks of the campaign as reported in the German newspapers of the time, and its impact on German life.

IWM is working with four partners to share art from our collections and explore different perspectives on the Second World War, to mark the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. Artist Anthony Padgett worked with one of our partners, The Harris in Preston, to create a new sculpture based on the stories of local people.

How often has anyone visiting the site of a battlefield wondered just how things would have actually looked at the time? David Flintham tells us about the work of the Centre for Experimental Military Archaeology, which reconstructs historical sites using cutting-edge technology.

SSN member Andrew Hemmings is researching Second World War casualties buried near to his home in Wales. Find out more in this guest blog post, written by Cardiff University student Ziyan Wang.

In this guest blog Morris Brodie, Digital Intern at Aberystwyth University, reflects on a Residential held at IWM London bringing together Interns across the Partnership.