A House Through Time: Two Cities at War focuses on two apartment blocks in Berlin and London

“It’s not to denigrate that form of history, it’s just that there’s a lot of it being done already and I’m less interested in that than in the lives of ordinary people.”

Now in his new series, he’s using that approach to tell the story of the Second World War. Instead of concentrating on one property, A House Through Time: Two Cities at War focuses on two apartment blocks, Montagu Mansions in Marylebone, London, and 72 Pfalzburger Strasse in Berlin.

It’s a story that begins in the 1920s, when the seeds of the conflict were being sown.

David discovers that among the residents of Montagu Mansions was former soldier John Murray-Smith, who had been left physically and mentally shattered by his service in the First World War.

He and his family were far from alone in struggling to deal with the impact of the conflict, and many Brits were looking for someone to blame. As David discovers, the mood of the nation was summed up by Prime Minister Lloyd George who promised to ‘Make Germany Pay’.

Meanwhile, the Germans had also experienced devastating losses in the war. One of the residents of 72 Pfalzburger Strasse, talented artist Albert Henninger, had been mentally and physically scarred by his experiences in the German air force.

To add to the national humiliation of losing the war, Germany was forced to pay billions in reparations to the Allies, which created economic chaos.

David discovers how these conditions contributed to the rise of the then-nascent political party the Nazis, who promised to rebuild Germany. In the 1920s, their leader Adolf Hitler was still a fringe figure, but his message would reach more people as the decade wore on.

By the early 1930s, some residents of the apartment block, including Albert Henninger’s wife Lisi, were fully committed to the Nazis, while their Jewish neighbours, the Sallisohns, had already borne witness to antisemitic violence.

The rise of the Nazis was also causing concern in Britain as David learns through the story of entrepreneur Cecil Bernstein.

He owned a fast-expanding chain of luxury cinemas, which showed not only movies but newsreels. They reported growing support for Hitler, which made for frightening viewing for Cecil and his family, who were Jewish.

When the Nazis gained control of the German government in 1933, Pfalzburger Strasse resident Herbert Rosenfeld discovered he could no longer practise as a dermatologist. As David reminds us, the danger to the Jewish families in the building would only increase.