[ 29 March 1938 ] Speaking in the House of Lords on 29 March 1938, Archbishop of Canterbury Cosmo Gordon Lang, not wishing to appear too pro-Nazi, began his defence of Hitler’s recent seizure of Austria, cautiously. He reasoned that it had been ‘inevitable,’ and that Prime Minister Chamberlain, by not taking retaliatory action, had…
[ 13 March 1938 ] Late in the evening of Sunday 13 March 1938, Hitler gave an interview in a hotel room in the Austrian town of Linz to a journalist in whom he had complete confidence to dutifully report the Nazi propaganda line as to why a day earlier his troops had marched into…
[ 10 March 1938 ] On Thursday 10 March 1938, the newly appointed German Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, was on the second day of a four day diplomatic visit to London. Earlier in the day, he lunched with the foreign secretary, Lord Halifax, at the Foreign Office, having being forced to run a gauntlet…
[ 1 December 1937 ] The left leaning Daily Herald, was arguably the most progressive of Britain’s mainstream newspapers in the thirties. Unlike The Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Express and the Daily Mail, it would often carry articles and editorials which were mildly disapproving, and even occasionally sharply critical, of Britain’s policy of appeasing Hitler. At the same time,…
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…
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…
28 July 1933 On 28 July 1933, six months after Hitler became chancellor of Germany, the Cabinet decided against implementing any regulations on the sales of British aircraft or advanced aero engines to Germany. The only qualification was that, if, at any time, other countries were prepared to insist on a ‘written assurance from the German…
31 May 1933 On 31 May 1933, Cosmo Gordon Lang, the Archbishop of Canterbury, speaking in the House of Lords, agreed that it was right to be concerned at the ‘the oppression of members of the Jewish race’ in Germany. However, he reminded peers that Britain also had to understand the situation from the anti-Semitic…
14 May 1938 It was a most shameful moment of English sporting deference to the Nazi regime. On 14 May 1938, the England football team gave the Nazi salute in front of a crowd of over one hundred thousand in the German Olympic Stadium. The most shocking aspect, however, was not the incident itself, but…
