The Story Isn't Over
History Worth Investigating

You have questions about pre-World War II Germany. We have highly trained News Agents, ready to quickly sift through primary sources and bring you answers. What do you want to know more about?

Pick a category below to start your deep dive, or ask your own questions

People
Places
Events
Julien Gorbach

Julien Gorbach

Julien Gorbach (Ph.D., University of Missouri-Columbia) is a Journalism professor at a Tier 1-research university as well as a veteran journalist who investigated stories in New York, Boston, New Mexico, Louisiana, and Florida before joining academia.

He also is the author of the acclaimed scholarly book “The Notorious Ben Hecht: Iconoclastic Writer and Militant Zionist,” a biography of the “Shakespeare of Hollywood,” who turned to advocacy in the 1940s, when he broke the American media silence about the Nazi slaughter of Jews.

Agent Files [ Active Agents: 06 ]
Clipboard Charlie

Clipboard Charlie

Primary-source specialist. Pulls real 1933-1945 newspaper clips. No summaries, no shortcuts. Narrow your question to a paper, a date range, a name. The tighter the ask, the better the results.

"The story's in there. You just gotta know where to look. I don't do vague. Give me something to work with."

Heady Hildy Johnson

"Heady" Hilda Johnson

The Historiographer. Tracks how historians have fought over their interpretations of Hitler, the Holocaust, and the press since World War II.

“Every generation thinks they've cracked it. Then we open the archives, and we start over.”

Lenny Len Scopes

Lenny "Len" Scopes

The Methodologist. Illustrates how political, intellectual, social, and cultural historians read the same event differently, depending upon who's asking.

"Same sources, four historians, four completely different stories. That's the fun part."

Ida Bottom Line Nord

Ida "Bottom Line" Nord

Sees structures of influence. Doesn't read the byline. Reads the masthead, then reads the balance sheet and determines who controls the press and who profits from it.

"Follow the money. Follow the power. Who owned it? Who paid for it? That's where you find your real story."

The Wire Fox

The Wire Fox

Dispatched from London, Berlin, Shanghai, and a dozen other datelines. Expert in international affairs, wartime journalism, and the art of filing under pressure.

"The world is always on the edge of something. That's the job."

Colby Byline

Colby Byline

From Joe Louis to the Brooklyn Dodgers — Colby was in the press box, the locker room, and the bleachers. Brings the colour, the drama, and the big-game metaphors.

"In sport, as in life: the scoreboard never lies."

Intellectual Inspiration:
Developing a Gen-AI Tool for Good

  1. 01/

    Mining the Morgue

    Our agents live in the newspaper archives — reading and interpreting thousands of clippings, letters to the editor, and editorial columns. The "morgue" is what newsrooms called their clip libraries. We made it talk.

  2. 02/

    Positioned in the Past

    Our agents avoid anachronisms by being locked in scope to particular historical paradigms. Clipboard Charlie doesn't know about smartphones. That's a feature, not a bug.

  3. 03/

    Talk Across Time

    You can speak in contemporary language to our agents — they'll translate your modern question into their era's frame of reference and respond as a journalist of their time would have.

News Agents chat interface showing a historical conversation

For Scholarly Researchers

Cross-reference primary sources at the speed of conversation, not the inter-library loan service. Find contradictions in the public record that your next paper needs to stand out, straight from the archive.

For University Students

Read the letters, diaries, reports, documents, and front pages, not just textbook summaries. News Agents provide a faster, friendlier way to find key primary sources that your paper needs.

For Community Historians

Dig into archival material without needing a university login or a research grant. Ask the questions you've always wanted answered, and get high-quality sources, with citable answers, quickly.

What People Are Asking
Our Agents

[Tap a question to start a conversation ]

"Analyze the chaotic first week of September 1939 through news dispatches. How did journalists report on the introduction of Blitzkrieg tactics, and how quickly did the press realize this was the definitive start of a global war?"

The invasion of Poland, Sept. 1, 1939

"Compare the official Nazi press explanations of Kristallnacht ('spontaneous demonstrations') with the eyewitness accounts smuggled out by foreign correspondents like Sigrid Schultz or David Woodward."

Kristallnacht, Nov 9-10, 1938

"Ernie Pyle was famous for focusing on the ordinary infantryman rather than generals. Synthesize accounts from his columns during the Italian or Normandy campaigns to show how he captured the daily life, psychological toll, and slang of the average 'G.I.'"

Ernie Pyle

"Dorothy Thompson was one of the first American journalists to sound the alarm about the dangers of the Nazi regime. Find early articles or commentary by her from the late 1930s and analyze the rhetorical strategies she used to warn a largely isolationist American public."

Dorothy Thompson

"As the head of the Associated Press bureau in Berlin until late 1941, Louis P. Lochner had to navigate intense state scrutiny. Find reports or historical accounts detailing how he managed to maintain objective reporting while operating behind enemy lines."

Louis P. Lochner

"How did international journalists bypass German press controls to report on the realities of Kristallnacht? What were the immediate reactions and headlines in American and British newspapers in the days following the pogrom?"

Kristallnacht, Nov 9-10, 1938

Your Case
Starts Here

Join historians, journalists, educators, and research nerds who are already talking to the past.

Start for Free Learn How It Works