Appeasing Hitler

On a wet afternoon in September 1938, Neville Chamberlain stepped off an aeroplane and announced that his visit to Hitler had averted the greatest crisis in recent memory and secured ‘peace for our time’. Less than a year after the British prime minister’s return from Munich, Germany invaded Poland and the Second World War began.

Appeasing Hitler is a compelling new narrative history of the disastrous years of indecision, failed diplomacy and parliamentary infighting that enabled Nazi domination of Europe. Drawing on deep archival research, including previously unseen sources, Tim Bouverie has created an unforgettable portrait of the ministers, aristocrats and amateur diplomats who, through their actions and inaction, shaped their country's policy and determined the fate of Europe.

Beginning with the advent of Hitler in 1933, we embark on a fascinating journey from the early days of the Third Reich to the beaches of Dunkirk. Bouverie takes us inside the 10 Downing Street of Stanley Baldwin and Chamberlain, and into the backrooms of Parliament where an unusual coalition of Conservative and opposition MPs – including the indomitable Winston Churchill – were among the few to realise that the only real choice was between ‘war now or war later’. And as German troops enter the demilitarised Rhineland, march into Austria and threaten to invade Czechoslovakia, he takes us into the drawing rooms and dining clubs of fading imperial Britain, where Hitler enjoyed surprising support among the ruling class and even members of the Royal Family.

Both sweeping and intimate, Appeasing Hitler is not only an eye-opening history but a timeless lesson on the challenges of standing up to aggression and authoritarianism – and the calamity that results from failing to do so.