Coffee with Hitler: The British Amateurs Who Tried to Civilise the Nazis

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The book works well as a companion to Tim Bouverie’s fine Appeasing Hitler, focusing less on the well-known events and figures of the era and more on the gentlemanly amateur diplomats of the day. And so, the stage is set for confidences, twists, dramas, alliances, broken promises, miscommunication, and double-bluffs. Photograph: PA View image in fullscreen David Lloyd George (right, with Winston Churchill in 1922) became a key figure in the Anglo-German Fellowship. Over cosy dinners and cocktail receptions, the likes of Tennant and Hamilton believed that they could act as a moderating influence between the British government and the German high command, but their continued presence at these events gave such figures as Himmler and Ribbentrop, the eventual German ambassador to Britain, a reassuring picture of the potential opposition they faced. With support from royalty, aristocracy, politicians and businessmen, they hoped to use the much mythologised Anglo-German Fellowship as a vehicle to civilise the Nazis.

ABSOLUTELY OUTSTANDING - a major and unique contribution to the body of evidence / information on a vital period of European history. This compelling book captures the double-edged nature of “one mainstay of British values” – giving “even the most blatantly disgusting people the benefit of the doubt. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Coffee with Hitler tells the astounding and poignant story, for the first time, of a handful of amateur British intelligence agents who wined, dined and befriended the leading National Socialists between the wars. This fascinating study challenges the too easy dichotomy between the villainous and duped appeasers and those with Churchillian foresight and insight.It is also not entirely clear what their own agenda really was - where they willing to give Germany a free hand in eastern Europe, where they anti-communists or did they want a milder form of Nazism with which they could along with. The outstanding narrative reads like a thriller, taking readers from the salons of stately homes and St James's clubs to the mass rallies and diplomatic backrooms of Nazi Germany. A pacifist Welsh historian, a Great War flying ace, a butterfly-collecting businessman… Coffee With Hitler offers a rare glimpse into a motley crew who would provide the British government with better intelligence on the horrifying rise of the Nazis than anyone else. The story of Tennant, Conwell-Evans and Christie and their historical journey is an absorbing one, which casts light on many aspects of the period… They deserve the rehabilitation that Charles Spicer has eloquently accorded them.

The extraordinary story of three men, a Welsh historian and political secretary, a butterfly-collecting Old Etonian and a Great War fighter ace. Coffee with Hitler tells the astounding true story of a handful of amateur British intelligence agents who wined, dined and befriended the leading National Socialists between the wars. This is the real story of a group of amateurs who went about a mission to appease Adolf Hitler and try to prevent another war in Europe that would surely escalate into a second global conflict. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others.Spicer describes his intentions in writing Coffee With Hitler as being explicitly about those who sought to “civilise” rather than “appease” the Nazis. This unlikely band of mavericks – who included a butterfly-collecting Old Etonian and a left-wing Welsh pacifist – spent five doomed years wining and dining the leading henchmen of Hitler’s diabolical regime. Julie Gottlieb, professor of modern history, University of Sheffield 'A captivating and convincing revisionist history. They were better known as David Lloyd George, Ernest Tennant and the Duke of Hamilton, and they combined high social standing with an unfortunate tendency to pursue freelance diplomacy unchecked either by government intervention or common sense.