Preliminary sketches for the great canvas of the Cold War were already under way in the Balkans in the summer of 1944 when Frank Thompson was executed. Bulgaria was a member of the Axis and Frank, older brother of the historian E.P. Thompson, was on a mission in the country for Special Operations Executive: the idea was that anti-Nazi partisans should be encouraged and supported in their efforts to stir up trouble, as their neighbours the Yugoslav partisans were doing, and keep German units too busy to deploy elsewhere. Frank was 23 when he fell into the hands of government forces. He had been parachuted into eastern Serbia six months earlier to link up with a band of Bulgarian fighters and accompany them across the border: it was a life of hiding, running and holing up in a hinterland far from the world of his fellow army officers.

LRB 7 March 2013 | PDF Download