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

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Spicer’s research is based on his recent doctorate, examined by leading historians including David Cannadine, Julie Gottlieb and Richard Overy. Commenting on the book, he said: "I am thrilled to be working with Sam and Oneworld on this book that challenges conventional interpretations of appeasement and the motives of those who took coffee with Hitler." Coffee with Hitler tells the story of how a handful of British amateur spies, under the guise of the Anglo-German Fellowship, wined, dined and befriended some of the most senior Nazis. The synopsis explains: "The British government’s aloofness had alienated the German leaders fuelling their appetite for conflict. Far from appeasing the regime, this group gathered alarming intelligence that showed Neville Chamberlain’s foreign policy as bound to lead to war. These were neither career diplomats nor professional intelligence agents but ranged from a pacifist Welsh historian and a Great War flying ace to an Old Etonian butterfly collector. The book draws on newly discovered sources that reveal Winston Churchill’s true feelings about the state of play on the eve of war." A specialized book that will be enjoyed more by readers with a good prior understanding of the political and diplomatic tensions between Germany and Great Britain prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. Its focus is on a small slice of the complicated history leading to war. Newly available primary sources, including the previously unseen papers of Conwell-Evans, show that the intelligence supplied to the British government by Tennant, Conwell-Evans, and Christie was superior to that delivered by professional diplomats and MI5. Spicer makes a strong case that the AGF men offered a reasonable alternative to Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement. Readers will make up their own minds as to whether it's realistic to think that Hitler, or any other tyrant, could be tamed." Booklist

The fascinating story of how an eccentric group of intelligence agents used amateur diplomacy to penetrate the Nazi high command in an effort to prevent the start of World War II

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How might the British have handled Hitler differently?” remains one of history’s greatest “what ifs." In this terrific debut, historian Charles Spicer genuinely enriches and deepens our understanding of the Thirties – the all-important decade in which the great and the good of these islands, scarred to the depths of their souls by the Great War, struggled to avoid a second global conflict." Coffee with Hitler tells the astounding story of how a handful of amateur British intelligence agents wined, dined, and befriended the leading National Socialists between the wars. With support from royalty, aristocracy, politicians, and businessmen, they hoped to use the recently founded Anglo-German Fellowship as a vehicle to civilize and enlighten the Nazis.

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 Week(UK) A lively study of the “amateur British intelligence agents who…hoped to avert a second war in Europe by building rapport with the Third Reich politically, economically and socially.”

In this very well-researched and well-written work of historical revisionism, Charles Spicer reminds us of the important fact that not every Briton who wanted better relations with Nazi Germany did so from malign motives. Some were Germanophile, myopic, naïve, and amateur, but essentially well meaning. Understandably, they were incapable of believing—until it was almost too late—that Adolf Hitler was as evil as we, with our total historical hindsight, know him to have been.” When Hitler rose to power in the early 1930s, public reaction in Britain was not that of unalloyed horror. Instead, it lay somewhere between disinterest, snobbish, if inaccurate, contempt (“the man’s a house painter!”), and, in some circles, quiet satisfaction that a vigorous reformer had shaken up his country in an apparently effective and forward-looking fashion. The evils of the Nazi regime were obvious to anyone with either a social conscience or a knowledge of history, but it was more convenient either to ignore them, or, in the case of a group of well-meaning but misguided society figures, to attempt to mitigate them by means of the so-called Anglo-German Fellowship.

Coffeewith Hitlertellsthe astounding story of how a handful of amateur Britishintelligence agents wined, dined, and befriendedthe leading NationalSocialists between the wars. With support from royalty, aristocracy,politicians, and businessmen, they hoped to use the recently foundedAnglo-German Fellowship as a vehicle to civilize and enlighten the Nazis. If ever there was a case of the road to hell being paved with good intentions, it is surely the story that Charles Spicer tells so brilliantly and empathetically in this exceptionally well-written book. The Anglo-German Fellowship was established in Britain in the early 1930s by a group of well-connected and influential men, in the belief that Nazi Germany should not be appeased, but that it could be civilized. With the outbreak of war, the Fellowship became increasingly irrelevant, and was eventually disbanded. Posterity has not been kind to the Fellowship, at best ignoring it, at worst deriding its members as Nazi collaborators. This book seeks to rescue the Fellowship from such oblivion and opprobrium, and it does so challengingly and convincingly. David Cannadine Charles Spicer’s “Coffee With Hitler” has the cover and characters of an Alan Furst novel, but it is a true story of double-dealers and shifting shades of gray. The book follows three principal figures. Philip Conwell-Evans was a tailor’s son and socialist intellectual from Wales. Ernest Tennant was a butterfly-collecting Old Etonian from a “fantastically wealthy” Scottish family with ties to the chemicals industry and the City of London. Grahame Christie was a World War I fighter ace and a former attaché at the British embassies in Berlin and Washington. Between 1935 and the outbreak of war in September 1939, these “well-intentioned obscure middle-aged” Britons befriended the senior Nazi leadership and lobbied their own government in an effort to avoid another global conflagration. How the British might have handled Hitler differently remains one of history’s greatest ‘what ifs’...

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That thing in the air that is deadlier than even your “strenuous flus”? Trump knew—and did nothing about it. Spicer describes his intentions in writing Coffee With Hitler as being explicitly about those who sought to “civilise” rather than “appease” the Nazis. 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. Both appeasers and civilisers overrated their own abilities and underestimated the evils to which they – largely unwittingly – played handmaiden. This engaging book offers a warning from history that remains terrifyingly relevant today. The fascinating story of how an eccentric group of intelligence agents used amateur diplomacy to penetrate the Nazi high command in an effort to prevent the start of World War II. It is not possible to generalise about the fellowship: it had unquestionably good intentions, even if some used it for commercial purposes and others to get close to their heroes, while its leaders should have realised, as Lothian did, that it was being used for nefarious purposes by Berlin. But once Kristallnacht – the pogrom against the Jews in November 1938 – was unleashed, the game was up. British public opinion was revolted; the fellowship started to crumble. It had tried and it had failed. But Spicer manages to show that far from all its adherents were fellow travellers of the Nazis, and to prove that one mainstay of British values is to give even the most blatantly disgusting people the benefit of the doubt.