A pacifist Welsh historian, a Great War flying ace, and a butterfly-collecting businessman offered the British government 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. Daily Telegraph 'This engaging book offers a warning from history that remains terrifyingly relevant today.

With more than a few spies, rogues, and plot twists along the way, Spicer tells a story that could be ripped from the pages of a novel.As a lesson of history, this excellent book is a sober reminder to policymakers to look at the evidence in plain sight. I could not recommend this book enough - not least because it reveals just how nuanced the whole subject of appeasement had become by1939. 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.

A must-read for all those interested and studying the 1930s; the prelude to the second world war; diplomacy; and politics of the period. Or, finally, that it was probably Kim Philby who tipped off Moscow that Herman Göring was planning to fly to Oxfordshire for secret peace talks just before war was declared - causing the visit to be cancelled. Both appeasers and civilisers overrated their own abilities and underestimated the evils to which they – largely unwittingly – played handmaiden. While many, even most, of the British members of the Anglo-German Fellowship were Germanophiles rather than Nazi sympathisers, there was a fine line between cultural appreciation of the country’s literature and art and the more ambiguous ideas expressed by such shadowy figures as the historian TP Conwell-Evans, a man jocularly described by Lloyd George as “my Nazi” and a leading member of the Fellowship. This was accentuated by the accession of Edward VIII, a man who was described approvingly by Ribbentrop as “a kind of English National Socialist”.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.

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.

And so, the stage is set for confidences, twists, dramas, alliances, broken promises, miscommunication, and double-bluffs. 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. ABSOLUTELY OUTSTANDING - a major and unique contribution to the body of evidence / information on a vital period of European history.