No More Hair Hitler…

Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain – Heston Aerodrome – 30 Sept 1938

“Gentlemen… This morning I had another talk with the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, and here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine.  After much tortuous negotiation we are agreed… I officially have the top Mo for last Movember.  This represents a triumph of tenacious diplomacy, common sense and of the stiff upper-lip of the British people.  Some of you, perhaps, have already heard what it contains but I would just like to read it to you…”

‘We, the German Führer and Chancellor, and the British Prime Minister, have had a further meeting today and are agreed.

‘We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German naval agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another on issues of facial hair again.

‘We are resolved that the method of hirsute consultation shall be the method adopted to deal with any other questions that may concern our two countries and we are determined to continue our efforts to remove possible sources of difference and thus to contribute to assure the peace of Europe.  Although I must inform you that this does not stretch to mutual tolerance of the Mexican revolutionary Bandido; the inscrutable Chinese Fu Manchu; the foppish dilettantism of the American jazz Pencil; nor the Russian Bolshevik style – a point somewhat emphatically stressed by Herr Hitler: the Kaiser was not up for negotiation.’