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

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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. Choice Magazine 'Spicer, who has given close, neutral and unerring scrutiny of the sources, proves to be a brisk, fair-minded and authoritative revisionist.

Literary Review 'This is a complex tale, but as skillfully narrated by Spicer, it moves along briskly. Both appeasers and civilisers overrated their own abilities and underestimated the evils to which they – largely unwittingly – played handmaiden.

A truly illuminating, humane and sophisticated book – and, one hopes, the first of many by an exciting new talent on the historical scene. Darren O'Byrne, History Today '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 extraordinary story of three men, a Welsh historian and political secretary, a butterfly-collecting Old Etonian and a Great War fighter ace. 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. Richard Davenport-Hines, TLS 'Spicer's book is a resounding success, retelling the fascinating history of the Anglo-German Fellowship. Rothermere’s Daily Mail published articles praising Hitler and editorials declaring “Hurrah for the Blackshirts! Charles Spicer draws on newly discovered primary sources, shedding light on the early career of Kim Philby, Winston Churchill's approach to appeasement, the US entry into the war and the Rudolf Hess affair.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. Or that Hitler himself was so adamant that neither Britain nor France would do anything if he invaded Poland, that when Britain's declaration of war finally arrived at his study in the Reich Chancellery he gave Ribbentrop an icy glare and said 'what now?

For a moment, it genuinely seemed as if amicable relations would persist between the two countries, thanks in part to the work of the Fellowship. Charles Spicer has achieved something rare, a book that is entertaining and informative whilst also being an important piece of scholarship. The collective efforts are played out through the Anglo-German Fellowship and its German equilivent Deutsch-Englische Gesellschaft. 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. 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.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.