Diaries of Tory MP who partied with the Nazis to be published in full
Memoirs detailing Sir Henry ‘Chips’ Channon's ties with Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels and Herman Göring to be released 52-years after being part-published in redacted version
The diaries of a Tory MP who died in the 1950s after writing about how he partied with the Nazis are to be published in full.
Sir Henry ‘Chips’ Channon’s diary was part-published 52 years ago, nine years after his death, but it was heavily redacted to save the blushes of senior Brits who were still alive at the time.
Channon attended parties with members of the Nazi high command, including Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels and Herman Göring, and his full memoirs are likely to reveal who joined him.
The publishers said the diaries include a visit to Göring’s house during the 1936 Berlin Olympics, but of most interest to historians will be Channon’s close relationship with Wallis Simpson and King Edward VIII, who abdicated in 1936.
Howard Coster/Source: transferred to National Portrait Gallery from Central Office of Information npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw44084/Chips-Channon)
Hutchinson will publish the “elegant, gossipy and bitchy” diaries of MP and socialite, calling them “a major document of 20th-century British history”.
The first volume covering 1918 to 1938 will be published in hardback, e-book and audio in September 2020, and edited by historian Simon Heffer.
A further two volumes will be released in 2021 and 2022.
Heffer said Channon, who wrote about his dealings with Churchill, was “an appeaser” who clearly did not like the Germans and who saw them as a threat.
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