Lisbon in WWII: Refugees, Spies and Intrigue Seminar
.png_SIA_JPG_fit_to_width_MEDIUM.jpg)
For more information regarding this seminar, please email Parkes Institute at parkes@southampton.ac.uk .
Event details
Part of the Parkes Research Seminar Series 2015/2016
Lisbon was the only European city in which both the Allies and the Axis powers openly operated. The presentation “Lisbon in WWII: Refugees, Spies and Intrigue” is set within the context of a country, Portugal, that was frantically trying to hold on to its self proclaimed wartime neutrality, but which, in reality, was increasingly caught in the middle of the economic, and naval, wars between the Allies and the Nazis.
Lisbon was a city, in which, an apparent German plot in 1940 to kidnap the Duke and Duchess of Windsor was foiled. Hundreds of Allied and German agents operated openly, including a young Ian Fleming who was busy planning “Operation Golden Eye”. The traitor, Kim Philby, ran the Allied espionage operations in Portugal, and worked alongside writers Graham Greene and Malcolm Muggeridge.
At the escape line for Allied POW’s, Lisbon hosted thousands of refuges who had flooded into the city. Among the refugees were prominent Jews such as the writer Arthur Koestler, the artists Marc Chagall and Max Ernst, and the art collector, Peggy Guggenheim.
The presentation by Professor Lochery will use photographs from both private and public archives, alongside a number of unpublished documents, to provide an account of the intrigue, betrayal, opportunism and double-dealing that took place in Lisbon during WWII.
Speaker information
Professor Neill Lochery, University College London. Professor Neill Lochery is a world-renowned source on the politics and modern history of Europe and the Mediterranean Middle East, and is The Catherine Lewis Professor of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Studies at University College London. He has authored a series of critically acclaimed books, including The View from the Fence: The Arab-Israeli Conflict from the Present to its Roots, the international bestseller Lisbon: War in the Shadows of the City of Light and most recently Brazil: The Fortunes of War, World War II and the Making of Modern Brazil. His new book, The Resistible Rise of Benjamin Netanyahu will be published by Bloomsbury in November. Professor Lochery has served as an advisor to political and economic leaders from both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He frequently appears on TV and radio around the world, and is a contributor to leading newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal.