Probably the most inappropriate Christmas card ever sent …

The year is 1938, and you’re looking for a suitably seasonal picture for the front of your Christmas cards. A festive image which will convey seasonal goodwill to all humanity.

What could better symbolise those eternal truths than an international peace treaty signed by the two major European powers which had once been at war? And so it came to pass that this Christmas card was produced and exchanged some seven decades ago:

Chamberlain & Hitler

And here’s what it said inside:

Chamberlain & Hitler inside

Even reproducing that infamous piece of paper which proclaimed ‘peace in our time’:

Chamberlain & Hitler 002

In the circumstances, I think Churchill’s choice of Christmas card was more appropriate.

Images courtesy of the official Conservative Party Archive held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

The card was found amongst the papers of Percy Cohen, a prominent Jewish Conservative believed to be a former member of the Conservative Research Department. The signatory of the card, RJ Rosie, may well have been physician to King George VI and HM The Queen. It is not known if the card was an official one or personally commissioned.

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This entry was posted in Europe / International.
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4 Comments

  • At least Neville Chamberlain didn’t quite do to Hitler what Gerald Scarfe had Harold Wilson do to Lyndon Johnson.

  • A Bridge Too Far 22nd Dec '10 - 8:33pm

    Just look at the body language in that photo.

  • I wonder if the card was available in facsimile to readers of the Daily Mail?

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