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The man who wrote Tarka
PETER FROST tells the sinister story of Henry Williamson – otter enthusiast, fascist and Hitler admirer who wanted TE Lawrence to become Britain’s own Fuhrer
Henry Williamson by Charles Tunnicliffe

HENRY WILLIAMSON wrote his fine book Tarka the Otter in 1927. It made him both rich and famous, but there was another, much darker, side to this man for Williamson was a fascist, an admirer of Hitler and an enthusiastic supporter of Oswald Mosley and his blackshirts.

His writings between the wars were an odd mixture of wonderful descriptions of nature and paeans of praises of German national socialism. He was one of the first join Mosley’s British Union of Fascists.

Williamson attended Adolf Hitler’s notorious Nuremberg rallies and met Hitler himself. Those meetings would lead to his greatest act of treason.

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