Coffee with Hitler The untold story of the amateur spies who tried to civilize the Nazis

Review by Booklist Review

A low point in the lead-up to WWII was Neville Chamberlain's proclamation that he had brought about "Peace in Our Time." Historian Spicer, in his debut, illuminates a different aspect of interwar Anglo-German relations. The Anglo-German Fellowship (AGF), founded in 1935, was intended to promote trade, cultural, and sporting connections between England and Germany and to capitalize on the Nazi affection for British aristocracy, with the unspoken goal of civilizing the barbaric Nazi regime. Until the organization disbanded in 1939, Ernest Tennant and Philip Conwell-Evans, secretaries of the AGF, and Grahame Christie, a member of the group, formed an amateur diplomatic and spy channel, gathering information about anti-Nazi German resistance and Hitler's military plans. 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.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Historian Spicer debuts with a detailed yet unpersuasive attempt to rehabilitate the reputation of the Anglo-German Fellowship, an "exclusive friendship society" comprising British aristocrats, politicians, businessmen, and military leaders who "wined, dined and charmed the leading National Socialists in Germany in the 1930s." Classifying the group's members as "amateur intelligence agents," Spicer draws a somewhat murky distinction between their attempts to "civilize" the Nazi regime in order to avert war and Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement. Focusing on Fellowship members Philip Conwell-Evans, a Welsh political secretary and historian; Grahame Christie, a WWI pilot; and businessman Ernest Tennant, Spicer meticulously details his subjects' many meetings with Nazi leaders including Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hermann Göring, and Rudolf Hess. While Spicer reveals that Fellowship members passed valuable information on the inner workings of the Nazi government to British and U.S. officials, coordinated with anti-Nazi resistance leaders in Germany, and earnestly believed that improved trade relations and cultural exchanges could decrease the likelihood of war, he overstates how much "the socially gauche National Socialists... admired and aped the British elites" and underplays the "naivety and gullibility" of the Fellowship. This revisionist history feels like a bit too much of a reach. (Sept.)

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Review by Library Journal Review

The maiden effort by historian Spicer (based on his eight years of dissertation research) corrects long-standing misinterpretations of the work of the Anglo-German Fellowship: an interwar diplomacy program in which amateur British intelligence agents socialized with and befriended leading political figures of Nazi Germany, as part of an attempt to influence and "enlighten" Nazi officials and head off a war. The British leaders of the fellowship--which had its heyday from 1934 to 1938, shut down in 1939, and disbanded in 1949--have often been described as Nazi appeasers, but Spicer argues that most weren't interested in appeasement. Instead, they saw their mission as civilizing, building on centuries-old ties between Germany and Britain, and promoting amity, trade, and prosperity. The spokesmen of the Anglo-German Fellowship were a left-wing Welsh historian, a butterfly-collecting businessman, and a World War I air ace. And yes, they drank coffee with Hitler. They also attended Nazi rallies, but they spoke against persecution of Jewish people. When it became obvious to Britain that peace with Hitler was a lost cause, members of the fellowship--at great personal risk--began sussing out German military secrets and connecting with dissenters inside Germany. VERDICT The escalation of Nazi violence, Edward VIII's unexpected abdication, an unprepared Britain, and a government ignoring the danger signs of war all make for a heady brew and an exciting read. Will be easy for history lovers to enjoy.--David Keymer

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

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." Throughout the 1930s, a clique of British aristocrats, scholars, and businessmen maintained friendly social contacts with prominent Nazis, including Hitler. Dismissed for decades as Nazi sympathizers, they have finally found a defender. That this book began as Spicer's doctoral thesis should not discourage readers; the result of intense research, it's a page-turner. Known mostly to history buffs, Spicer's Germanophiles included Thomas Conwell-Evans, a Welsh political secretary and historian; Philip Kerr, a liberal politician, writer, and aristocrat; and Ernest Tennant, a wealthy businessman. Few in their circle sympathized with British Nazism; most denounced antisemitic outrages; all were horrified by the carnage of World War I and felt guilty about the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles. In their eyes, however, Hitler was a fervent nationalist whose goal of returning his suffering nation to prosperity and global status deserved a measure of sympathy. Nowadays, scholars display a more nuanced view of Neville Chamberlain's appeasement, but popular histories continue to deplore the word, and politicians employ it to justify wars from Suez to Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan. Spicer emphasizes that his subjects did not aim to appease the Nazis but to civilize them. This was no secret. Many senior British officials dismissed these amateur agents, but the foreign service, starved for intelligence on Germany, took them seriously and often encouraged them. The author engagingly recounts a steady stream of social events, banquets, conferences, cultural exchanges, and semi-official visits among well-known British political figures and top-level Nazis. Although not fellow travelers, Spicer's subjects bent over backward to see reason in Nazi policies and take advantage of Germany's long-standing admiration of British culture, but they ultimately grew exasperated, concluded that Hitler was irrational, and supported war when it broke out. A captivating and convincing revisionist history. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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