007 creator was a Hitler fan

London, June 15 : Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, favoured appeasing Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime a year before the start of the Second World War.

Fleming, then a stockbroker, dismissed those urging war with Hitler as "the slaughterhouse brigade" in a letter, which is thought to have been stored unseen for decades. He believed a deal could be done with the future tyrant, which would allow Germany to return to its pre-war strength in exchange for a strict disarmament pact. The letter was published on September 28, 1938, as the nation waited to hear the outcome of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's meeting with Hitler in Munich. Fleming argued that if Hitler's territorial ambitions were limited to the aims he outlined in February 1920, then Britain should step back from war.

Three of those aims were: uniting a greater Germany of German peoples; repealing the Versailles treaty; and obtaining further territory to allow Germany's "surplus" population to emigrate.

"There will be no peace, no return of prosperity, and no happiness in Europe until England and France agree to the fulfillment of Herr Hitler's stated programme in exchange for a binding a disarmament pact," the Telegraph quoted Fleming, as writing in the letter.

ANI