Hitler was semi-divine. And Winston? He was the devil

Champagne-soaked parties with Goering. The Berlin Olympics with the Fuhrer. In the run-up to war, ‘Chips’ Channon was royally entertained by the Nazis — and, as revealed in the final part of his diaries, thought Churchill the most dangerous man in Europe

LIKE many others in 1930s Britain, Henry Channon was terrified of communism and thought Hitler was the one man who could save Europe from Stalin. At the time, Winston Churchill was one of only a few British politicians who thought Hitler posed a threat. Channon, in common with many other MPs, felt Churchill was dangerous and that his obsession with Germany would lead inevitably to war.

In 1936, Chips and his wife Honor were guests of the Nazi regime at the Berlin Olympic Games. His record of that trip is as naive as it is shocking, both in his undisguised admiration of Hitler and in his account of a visit to a Nazi labour camp, where he reported cheerful inmates looking healthy and well-fed.

As Nazi persecution intensified, Chips would come to be utterly appalled. But in 1936, his view of Germany was entirely benign — and his descriptions of attending a series of eyewateringly extravagant parties given by Goering, Ribbentrop and Goebbels are nothing short of astonishing.

Friday, May 15, 1936

I WAS dining with the King [Edward VIII] tonight. Dinner was gay and animated — but no gossip, as the King disapproves of it. I had an hour’s chat with Winston. He is consumed with contempt, jealousy, if indeed not hatred for [Stanley] Baldwin, whom he always denigrates. The ladies all curtsied when they left the dining room and Winston now led the conversation; he began by telling a story against me, how in Austria I was motoring with a lady when she was bitten on the bottom by a wasp and I gallantly sucked the wound, removing the sting. The story is true and the King roared with laughter!

Friday, May 29

[MY WIFE] Honor and I lunched with Herr von Ribbentrop [later Nazi ambassador to Britain]. He looks like the captain of someone’s private yacht, that is square, breezy, with a seagoing look. After the rich meal was over, the Ribbentrops left with Lord Londonderry for the Whitsun holiday. The Londonderrys are very pro-German; and, indeed, who isn’t? Except the Coopers [Duff and Lady Diana].

All people, male or female, who are attracted by men and force are pro-German. The ‘softies’ who make a cult of female worship are pro-French. [Secretary of State for war] Duff Cooper, who adores women to an almost insane pitch and is always trying to rape them in taxis, etc, is immeasurably pro-French. The King, luckily, if anything, is pro-German.

Thursday, August 6: Berlin

[CHIPS and his wife had been invited to the German Olympics by Ribbentrop] A grand car with a stormtrooper at the wheel called for us and we whizzed off to the Olympic Stadium.

An hour or so passed and then the audience was electrified — Hitler was coming! He looks exactly like his caricatures, brown uniform, short Charlie Chaplin moustache and square, stocky figure, determined but not grim. He saluted the cheering thousands and sat down. One felt one was in the presence of some semi-divine creature.

Saturday, August 8

I PASSED Hitler’s house in the Wilhelmstrasse. No one is allowed to walk unescorted in front of it; sentries or parading guards motion one to cross the street, where there is always a crowd waiting in the hope of seeing the Fuhrer.

That Germany, too, is not now communist is due to Hitler. Oh! England wake up. You in your sloth and conceit are ignorant of the Soviet dangers and will not realise Germany is fighting our battles.

Monday, August 10

COLONEL Somebody fetched us and drove us to the country to inspect a labour camp. We had been told such tales of the hardships labour camps entailed, etc. Not at all: the camps looked tidy, even gay, and the boys, all about 18, looked like the ordinary German peasant boy, fair, healthy and sunburned.

They are taught the preliminary military drills, gardening, etc, and their health and strength are built up. They were all smiling and clean. I cannot understand the English dislike and suspicion of the Nazi regime. [Channon was hopelessly naive. The inmates he saw were almost certainly Nazi loyalists drafted in for the occasion.]

Tuesday, August 11

TONIGHT was the terrific Ribbentrop party. The banquet was served in an enormous marquee, and 625 people piled in. There were ambassadors, royalties, grandees, Nazis, diplomats, everyone about in Europe. Goering shook us both by the hand and his merry eyes twinkled. He seems a lovably disarming man. There were many [British] MPs present. I enjoyed myself quite wildly.

Thursday, August 13

[THE] Goering ball. We drove to where he lives in the very centre of Berlin, and found the great gardens lit up, and 700 or 800 guests. Goering, wreathed in smiles and orders and decorations, received us gaily, his wife at his side.

We piled into the garden, where a hundred or more very white tables shone in the floodlighting.

Towards the end of the meal, a whole corps de ballet danced in the moonlight. All the guests agreed that Goering had indeed eclipsed Ribbentrop, which was his ambition.

The end of the garden was in darkness and suddenly, with no warning, it became floodlit and a procession of white horses, donkeys, peasants, music[ians] appeared from nowhere and, followed by the Goerings, we were led into [an amusement park] especially and secretly built! It was fantastic: roundabouts, cafes with beer and champagne, peasants dancing, vast women carrying pretzels and beer, a ship, a beerhouse, crowds of gay, laughing people, animals, and all done in impeccable taste.

People whispered that Goebbels was in despair — dark, semisinister Goebbels who is the éminence grise of the regime.

I suspect Goering of being venal, not least lascivious mentally. It is not difficult to picture him here, garlanded, and dancing before boys with a harp in his hand. People say that he can be v hard and ruthless, as are all Nazis when occasion demands, but intimately he seems all vanity and with a childish love of display.

Saturday, August 15

THIS evening was the Goebbels’ party. It lacked the elegance and chic of Ribbentrop’s, and the extravagance and good taste of Goering’s.

There were 2,000 people [and] dancing on illuminated platforms but it was tasteless and indifferent. At the end of dinner, cannons roared and fireworks began on a scale that would have staggered the Romans.

Sunday, August 16

HONOR and I went directly to the [Olympic] stadium to await the end of the Games. I couldn’t help thinking, as Hitler, alone, supreme, took the salute in the great arena, of the Emperor Claudius and his cruel games. Was it possible, would the little man from Braunau [Austria], for all his genius, remain simple and unspoilt whilst the world and its kings feared and fawned upon him?

Monday, August 17

OF THE leaders Goering is the most lovable; he is large, flabby, mischievous (probably sexual[ly] vicious, for I saw in his grey eyes the look I know too well), intelligent, eunuch-y, undoubtedly vain and devilishly fond of power and display.

Thursday, April 15, 1937

PEOPLE are saying that [Churchill] ought to be in the govt; that it is too bad to keep so brilliant a man