Artemis Photiadou

Artemis Photiadou is Assistant Professor in International History. She is a historian of twentieth-century Europe, with broad interests in Britain, Germany, Cyprus and Greece.  

Her first book, Interrogating Nazism: Spies, Soldiers and War Criminals in Second World War Britain (under contract with Cambridge University Press), is a history of how interrogation was transformed from a peripheral into a vital intelligence-gathering method in the 1940s. It shows how tens of thousands of Germans and German collaborators were interrogated using methods ranging from concealed microphones to psychometric tests, providing the Allies with an enormous amount of information on Nazi Germany’s war.  

Her next book project looks at British attitudes towards Germany from the rise of Hitler to the creation of the Federal Republic. Other ongoing projects concern British intelligence operations in Southern Europe in the era of the two world wars. 

For her teaching in the Department, Artemis has been nominated by students for several awards, including for Inspirational Teaching, for Excellent Welfare and Pastoral Support, and for Excellent Feedback and Communication. 

Prior to her appointment in 2023, Artemis was a Fellow at LSE, where she also completed her PhD. Before this, she trained as a lawyer and worked at Full Fact and UCL Constitution Unit. Between 2015 and 2022, she was Managing Editor of the award-winning LSE British Politics blog.

Publications: 

Photiadou, A. ‘The ABCs of Nazism: The political screening and classification of German prisoners of war in Britain in the aftermath of the Second World War’, accepted in The English Historical Review.

Photiadou, A. ‘Un-British no more: Torture and interrogation by Britain in Germany, 1945–1954’, Journal of Contemporary History, OnlineFirst, 57:4, 1029-1050

Photiadou, A. ‘The detention of non-enemy civilians escaping to Britain during the Second World War’, Historical Journal 65:2, 482–504. 2022

Photiadou, A. ‘Extremely valuable work: British intelligence and the interrogation of refugees in London, 1941–45’, Intelligence and National Security 36:1, 17–33. 2021

Photiadou A. & Dunleavy P, ‘The House of Commons: control of government and citizen representation’ in Dunleavy, P et al (eds.), The UK's Changing Democracy (London). 2018