the end of 1936, it was difficult for anyone in Britain who was not a recluse, an anti-Semite or a convinced National Socialist to claim ignorance of Nazi brutality. Jewish refugees, countless newspaper articles, surviving inmates of concentration camps and those persecuted for their religion provided ample proof that Hitler’s dictatorship was anything but benign. Nevertheless the optimists – among them many establishment figures – hung on to their belief in the Führer’s ‘sincerity’, arguing that if his more reasonable demands could in due course be met, all would be well.
