Lisbon

Lisbon had a pivotal role in World War II, though not a gun was fired there. The only European city in which both the Allied and Axis powers operated openly, it temporarily lodged much of Europe’s exiled royalty, over one million refugees, and a host of spies, secret police, bankers, Jews, writers, artists, and others. An operations officer described the daily scene at Lisbon’s airport as being like the movie Casablanca—times twenty. Renowned historian Neill Lochery draws on his relationships with high-level Portuguese contacts, records from Portuguese secret police, and other unpublished documents to offer a revelatory portrait of the war’s backstage. He also tells how Portugal, a relatively poor country trying desperately to remain neutral, survived the war not only intact but significantly wealthier—due in part, it turns out, to a cache of Nazi gold.