A secret intelligence report – compiled just as Hitler embarked on the Final Solution – found the Nazi leader had a “messiah complex” and increasingly turned to “Jew- phobia” as defeat loomed.
The document was drawn up for British intelligence in April 1942 and has lain unread since the war.
Written just as the conflict was starting to turn against Hitler, it shows British analysts had noticed developing paranoia in his speechmaking and a growing preoccupation with what he called “the Jewish poison”.
Just weeks later, senior Nazis set in place plans for the Final Solution – an intensification of the mass extermination of Jews.
Experts say the papers show British secret services sensed that, as the war turned against him, Hitler would resort to increasingly drastic measures.
The document was found among papers belonging to the family of Mark Abrams, who worked with the BBC’s overseas propaganda analysis unit and the psychological warfare board during the war. It was written by Joseph McCurdy, a Cambridge academic. – (PA)