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. Charles Spicer reveals the bold attempt of a handful of British intelligence agents to infiltrate and civilise the Nazi hierarchy.

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. 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.This unlikely band of mavericks – who included a butterfly-collecting Old Etonian and a left-wing Welsh pacifist – spent five doomed years wining and dining the leading henchmen of Hitler’s diabolical regime. and, in some circles, quiet satisfaction that a vigorous reformer had shaken up his country in an apparently effective and forward-looking fashion. 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. I understand I can change my preference through my account settings or unsubscribe directly from any marketing communications at any time.

This tale of the role of the (little known) Anglo-German Fellowship during Britain's slow descent into war as the 1930's progressed, is quite simply fascinating.

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. Washington Post 'In this terrific debut, historian Charles Spicer genuinely enriches and deepens our understanding of the Thirties - the all-important decade in which the great and the good of these islands, scarred to the depths of their souls by the Great War, struggled to avoid a second global conflict. Spicer, who has given close, neutral and unerring scrutiny of the sources, proves to be a brisk, fair-minded and authoritative revisionist… Coffee with Hitler should make it impossible to continue to lampoon the Fellowship as an unsavoury gang.