Laurence Rees

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Laurence Rees (born 1957) is Creative Director of History Programs for the BBC, a documentary filmmaker, and the author of five books on war and historical atrocities. Most recently, he wrote and produced the six-hour BBC/KCET documentary Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State. His books include The Nazis: a Warning from History; Horror in the East: Japan and the Atrocities of World War II; War of the Century: When Hitler Fought Stalin; and, his latest, Auschwitz: a New History.

He has won many awards for his television films, including a BAFTA, a Grierson Award, an International Documentary Award, a British Press Guild Award and a BANFF festival award. Educated at Solihull School and Oxford University, in 2005 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Sheffield University for services to history and television. In 2006 he also won History Book of the Year at the British Book Awards for his book on Auschwitz. He is the first person to win both a BAFTA for a television series he has written, produced and directed, as well as a British Book Award for a book he has written.