Neville Chamberlain's War Diaries go on display

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Neville Chamberlain during his time as Prime Minister.
Image: USHMM.
*(Image missing from Commons: image; log)*

The personal diaries of British wartime Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain are to go on display at the Imperial War Museum in London.

Beginning on August 20, 2009, a free exhibition, marking the 70th anniversary of the declaration of WWII, will allow visitors to have an unprecedented insight into the mind of the Prime Minister at the helm of the government when war was declared on September 3, 1939. His entry for that day, a note scribbled in pencil reads simply: "War declared." With the diaries, a letter to his sister detailing the preparations for war, and the declaration letter itself, written by Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax.

The centrepiece at the exhibition will be accompanied by King George IV's jacket worn on his television appearance, and other previously unseen memorabilia from the period in the immediate run up to the Second World War.

A book, entitled The World Goes To War, is to be published on August 27, 2009 to accompany the exhibition. Also, a television documentary will be broadcast on UK network ITV1.

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Sources

"Chamberlain diary to go on display" — The Press Association, August 17, 2009
"IWM marks 70th anniversary of WWII" — MayorWatch, August 18, 2009
"Outbreak" — Imperial War Museum, London, August 18, 2009
Nigel Farndale. "Second World War: the build up to war" — The Daily Telegraph, August 17, 2009

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