5 December 1937 On 5 December 1937, the Conservative MP Sir Henry Channon noted in his diary that he had ‘a long conversation with Lord Halifax,’ who had recently visited Hitler and other Nazi leaders in Germany, as a trusted informal ambassador acting on the prime minister Neville Chamberlain’s behalf. According to Channon, Halifax confessed…
5 December 1935 On 5 December 1935, the German Embassy complained to Sir George Crichton, the Lord Chamberlain, about a play at the Garrick Theatre in London’s West End. Sir George immediately instructed Dodson Noon, the theatre’s manager, to remove some lines in the play which had been deemed to be insulting to Hitler. He had…
4 December 1935 On Wednesday 4th December 1935, the visiting German national football team had been invited to an after the match dinner reception at the Hotel Victoria, situated just off Trafalgar Square. William Pickford, the vice president of the Football Association and the man who first introduced markings on football pitches in 1902, rapped…
30 September 1938 Today in 1938, the swastika flag was raised over Cardiff’s Town Hall, where it fluttered alongside the flags of Britain, France and Fascist Italy. The instructions came directly from Tory mayor Oliver Purnell and within hours he had received a message from the German consul ‘expressing delight at the Lord Mayor’s gesture…
20 April 1939 20 April 1939 marked Adolf Hitler’s fiftieth birthday. Less than five months later Britain would be at war with Germany. A month earlier, German troops had marched into the Czech Republic, proving that the Munich Agreement, which Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had proclaimed as ‘peace in our time,’ was worthless. Yet, the…
19 April 1939 On 19 April 1939, the Cabinet deliberated over the correct diplomatic etiquette with regards to celebrating Adolf Hitler’s birthday, who would turn fifty the next day. The first issue raised was whether the British Charge d’Affaires in Berlin should offer a birthday present to the Fuhrer or at least join in a…
1 March 1933 The burning down of the German Reichstag (parliament) on the night of 27 February 1933 was blamed on ‘red terror.’ The arson may well have been instigated by the Nazis, but the incident gave Hitler the opportunity he hungered for to eliminate the communists, socialists, trade unionists and all effective opposition that…
27 February 1933 On 27 February 1933, the Reichstag ( the German parliament ) was set alight. Even today we still do not know for sure who was responsible. Neither German socialists nor communists had ever resorted to such an act of terrorism previously. It was also obvious that, whoever might have been the incendiary,…
THE DAILY EXPRESS URGES HITLER TO USE ‘EXTRAORDINARY MEASURES’ [ 1 February 1933 ] On 1 February 1933, just days after Hitler was elected to power in Germany, the Daily Express urged the nascent Nazi regime to take ruthless action to tackle the supposed threat from Russian backed communists; informing its readers that ‘the communist wave of…
