ABSOLUTELY OUTSTANDING - a major and unique contribution to the body of evidence / information on a vital period of European history. 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. I could not recommend this book enough - not least because it reveals just how nuanced the whole subject of appeasement had become by1939. Spicer’s book is a resounding success, retelling the fascinating history of the Anglo-German Fellowship.

And so, the stage is set for confidences, twists, dramas, alliances, broken promises, miscommunication, and double-bluffs.and, in some circles, quiet satisfaction that a vigorous reformer had shaken up his country in an apparently effective and forward-looking fashion. While many, even most, of the British members of the Anglo-German Fellowship were Germanophiles rather than Nazi sympathisers, there was a fine line between cultural appreciation of the country’s literature and art and the more ambiguous ideas expressed by such shadowy figures as the historian TP Conwell-Evans, a man jocularly described by Lloyd George as “my Nazi” and a leading member of the Fellowship.

Tension builds as the three Germanophile's close friendships with the top echelons of the Nazi leadership get further and further strained as war approaches. Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny 'Charles Spicer tells the chilling story of how otherwise respectable men and women became pawns in a game of international intrigue with a reprehensible regime.Or, finally, that it was probably Kim Philby who tipped off Moscow that Herman Göring was planning to fly to Oxfordshire for secret peace talks just before war was declared - causing the visit to be cancelled. Kirkus, starred review 'As a lesson of history, this excellent book is a sober reminder to policymakers to look at the evidence in plain sight. The last two paragraphs of the book beautifully summarise the lessons we need to learn to navigate our current and future relationships with dictators and autocracies. The similarities with Russia’s current ambitions to take back territory lost in the break up of the USSR and with Germany’s ambitions to do the same with territories lost in WW1 are stark and chilling.

One, this is a segment of a much larger story and there are elements about which we still know little and, perhaps, that will always be the case about such a controversial area of British History.The extraordinary story of three men, a Welsh historian and political secretary, a butterfly-collecting Old Etonian and a Great War fighter ace. 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.