Lisbon: War in the Shadows of the City of Light, 1939-1945

Throughout the Second World War, Lisbon was at the very center of the world's attention and was the only European city in which both the Allies and the Axis powers openly operated. Portugal was frantically trying to hold on to its self-proclaimed wartime neutrality but in reality was increasingly caught in the middle of the economic, and naval, wars between the Allies and the Nazis. The story is not, however, a conventional tale of World War II in that barely a shot was fired or a bomb dropped. Instead, it is a gripping tale of intrigue, betrayal, opportunism, and double-dealing, all of which took place in the Cidade da Luz and along its idyllic Atlantic coastline. It is the story of how a relatively poor European country not only survived the war physically intact but came out of it in 1945 much wealthier than it had been when war broke out in 1939. Portugal's emergence as a prosperous European Union nation would be financed in part, it turns out, by a cache of Nazi gold.

During the war, Lisbon was a temporary home to much of Europe's exiled royalty, over one million refugees seeking passage to the US, and to a host of spies, secret police, captains of industry, bankers, prominent Jews, writers and artists, escaped POWs, and black marketeers. An operations officer writing in 1944 described the daily scene at Lisbon's airport as being like the movie Casablanca-times twenty.

In this riveting narrative, renowned historian Neill Lochery draws on his relationships with high-level Portuguese contacts, records recently uncovered from Portuguese secret police and banking archives, and other unpublished documents to offer a revelatory portrait of the war's backstage.

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Lisbon: War in the Shadows of the City of Light, 1939-1945

Throughout the Second World War, Lisbon was at the very center of the world's attention and was the only European city in which both the Allies and the Axis powers openly operated. Portugal was frantically trying to hold on to its self-proclaimed wartime neutrality but in reality was increasingly caught in the middle of the economic, and naval, wars between the Allies and the Nazis. The story is not, however, a conventional tale of World War II in that barely a shot was fired or a bomb dropped. Instead, it is a gripping tale of intrigue, betrayal, opportunism, and double-dealing, all of which took place in the Cidade da Luz and along its idyllic Atlantic coastline. It is the story of how a relatively poor European country not only survived the war physically intact but came out of it in 1945 much wealthier than it had been when war broke out in 1939. Portugal's emergence as a prosperous European Union nation would be financed in part, it turns out, by a cache of Nazi gold.

During the war, Lisbon was a temporary home to much of Europe's exiled royalty, over one million refugees seeking passage to the US, and to a host of spies, secret police, captains of industry, bankers, prominent Jews, writers and artists, escaped POWs, and black marketeers. An operations officer writing in 1944 described the daily scene at Lisbon's airport as being like the movie Casablanca-times twenty.

In this riveting narrative, renowned historian Neill Lochery draws on his relationships with high-level Portuguese contacts, records recently uncovered from Portuguese secret police and banking archives, and other unpublished documents to offer a revelatory portrait of the war's backstage.

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Lisbon: War in the Shadows of the City of Light, 1939-1945

Lisbon: War in the Shadows of the City of Light, 1939-1945

by Neill Lochery

Narrated by Robin Sachs

Unabridged — 8 hours, 31 minutes

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Lisbon: War in the Shadows of the City of Light, 1939-1945
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Lisbon: War in the Shadows of the City of Light, 1939-1945

Lisbon: War in the Shadows of the City of Light, 1939-1945

by Neill Lochery

Narrated by Robin Sachs

Unabridged — 8 hours, 31 minutes

Overview

Throughout the Second World War, Lisbon was at the very center of the world's attention and was the only European city in which both the Allies and the Axis powers openly operated. Portugal was frantically trying to hold on to its self-proclaimed wartime neutrality but in reality was increasingly caught in the middle of the economic, and naval, wars between the Allies and the Nazis. The story is not, however, a conventional tale of World War II in that barely a shot was fired or a bomb dropped. Instead, it is a gripping tale of intrigue, betrayal, opportunism, and double-dealing, all of which took place in the Cidade da Luz and along its idyllic Atlantic coastline. It is the story of how a relatively poor European country not only survived the war physically intact but came out of it in 1945 much wealthier than it had been when war broke out in 1939. Portugal's emergence as a prosperous European Union nation would be financed in part, it turns out, by a cache of Nazi gold.

During the war, Lisbon was a temporary home to much of Europe's exiled royalty, over one million refugees seeking passage to the US, and to a host of spies, secret police, captains of industry, bankers, prominent Jews, writers and artists, escaped POWs, and black marketeers. An operations officer writing in 1944 described the daily scene at Lisbon's airport as being like the movie Casablanca-times twenty.

In this riveting narrative, renowned historian Neill Lochery draws on his relationships with high-level Portuguese contacts, records recently uncovered from Portuguese secret police and banking archives, and other unpublished documents to offer a revelatory portrait of the war's backstage.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

’Lisbon’ is a valuable source of information about an astonishing time and place.”
 
Columbia Daily News
featured in roundup of history books: “A fascinating account of one of the back stages of the War. Lisbon was a hotbed of intrigue and espionage while remaining neutral as the world fought around it.”\
 

Macleans
“Like Casablanca, only 20 times more.”

Express Milwaukee
“Fascinating.”
 

The Scotsman, four-star review
“Intrigue, betrayal, opportunism and double dealing’ Lochery promises us – and his engrossing book delivers all those things and more.”

Literary Review
"The twists and turns of Salazar's tight-rope diplomacy form the central thread of Neill Lochery's impressive account of wartime Lisbon and its leader... The personalities, plots and counterplots within that tale are absorbing... The book's principal worth lies in its illumination of Salazar, who emerges from Lochery's pages as a fascinating, tireless and single-minded figure."

Jill Jolliffe,


Publishers Weekly
“Lochery tells the gripping story of the city known as ‘Casablanca II’…engrossing and rewarding.” 


Booklist, September 20, 2011
“Lochery recounts wartime happenings in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon, where the Allies and the Axis conducted the war through espionage, propaganda, and diplomatic pressure on Salazar to relinquish Portugal’s neutrality. A cloak-and-dagger atmosphere accordingly suffuses Lochery’s account…. A productive archival sleuth, [he] makes original contributions to the literature of neutrality in WWII.”
 

Shelf Awareness
“A lively, accessible and hair-raising history revealing every sordid detail of Lisbon during World War II—a time and place that many have chosen to forget in order to save face.”
 

Wall Street Journal
“Evocative…. [Lochery] skillfully documents the experiences of the rich and glamorous as well as the less fortunate and even sinister of the city’s war time arrivals… Distilling an enormous quantity of research, he has rendered a fascinating and readable account of this small country’s role in World War II, protected, as it was, by its wily champion.”
 

Seattle Times

Kirkus Reviews

An engaging account of the city of Lisbon during World War II, as dictator António de Oliveira Salazar navigated treacherous diplomatic waters in order to ensure the neutrality of Portugal. Middle East expert Lochery (Loaded Dice: The Foreign Office and Israel, 2008, etc.) chronicles the city's importance to the war on both sides, portraying it as a sort of Casablanca, complete with an entrenched gambling establishment. Salazar worked hard to ensure that his country was neutral and managed to improve its economic condition during the war by playing each side against the other. Both rich and poor fled to Lisbon from continental Europe in hopes of procuring passage off the continent, whether by selling jewels and gold or by more desperate means. Lochery presents a flashy city while also reminding readers of the plight of poorer refugees and Portuguese citizens who did not have the resources of the rich. Though the author mostly portrays Salazar in a positive light, he emphasizes the leader's lack of sympathy toward the Jews fleeing the Nazis. Lochery keeps the pages turning, never allowing his narrative to become dry or difficult; as a result, it is ideally suited to the interested layperson. However, the author does assume that the readers have knowledge of the major events of the time period, particularly those preceding WWII. Well-researched enough for an academic, but still accessible to general readers.

Product Details

BN ID: 2940169573824
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date: 11/01/2011
Edition description: Unabridged
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