James Bond creator Ian Fleming argued case for appeasing Hitler

Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, favoured appeasing Nazi Germany and dismissed those urging war with Hitler as “the slaughterhouse brigade” in a letter to The Times a year before the Second World War.
Historians and biographers have hitherto overlooked the letter, published on September 28, 1938, as Britain waited to hear the outcome of Neville Chamberlain’s fateful meeting with Hitler in Munich. The letter was uncovered through the Times electronic archive, which has now been made accessible to the public.
During the war Fleming became an officer in Naval Intelligence and a dedicated enemy of fascism, but in the immediate prewar period, like many Britons, he appears to have believed that a deal could still be done with Hitler to avert war.
In the letter, Fleming argued that if Hitler’s territorial ambitions were limited to the aims he outlined in 1920 – uniting a greater Germany of German peoples, repealing the Versailles treaty and obtaining further territory for the German population – then Britain should step back from war.
“There will be no peace, no return of prosperity, and no happiness in Europe until England and France agree to the fulfilment of Herr Hitler’s stated programme in exchange for a binding disarmament pact,” he wrote. More...