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Amazing story of how Hitler’s birthday card ended up in a Stratford home




A STRATFORD man who owns a birthday card sent to Hitler, says the story behind it is “like something out of a spy novel”.

Nick Dearling inherited the macabre item from his father Leslie, who flew Spitfires during World War II as part of the RAF’s elite photographic reconnaissance unit.

Leslie, known as ‘Johnnie,’ was selected for a special mission to take Churchill’s papers to the Potsdam Conference in July 1945.

He flew to Berlin and despatched the papers before going on to the Reichstag, Germany's national parliament and a central part of Adolf Hitler’s rise to power and the Nazi regime.

The Russian army were looting the building, including stripping it of chandeliers and other valuables, in the chaos that followed Hitler’s suicide and the German army’s surrender.

Free to wander, Leslie found himself in Hitler’s personal office where there were medals the Fuhrer had obviously intended to hand out to German officers.

He also noticed a birthday card addressed to Hitler – proudly displayed on the mantlepiece.

Nick Dearling with the birthday card sent to Adolf Hitler and kept by his father Flight Lieutenant Leslie Dearling, left. Photos: Mark Williamson
Nick Dearling with the birthday card sent to Adolf Hitler and kept by his father Flight Lieutenant Leslie Dearling, left. Photos: Mark Williamson

He put the card and the medals in his pockets, to take back and show his fellow pilots.

While in Berlin, he also went to Hitler’s bunker, where a British soldier was standing guard.

Although given permission to go down, he had nothing to light the way so decided against it.

The nine-by-six-inches birthday card he brought back is printed in red and gold, highlighting Adolf Hitler’s name and featuring a gold swastika – the Nazi symbol synonymous with torture and murder.

It bears a greeting from ‘the people of Hochen’, plus an official civic stamp and the signature of the Austrian town’s burgher master.

Nick said: “My father hardly ever spoke about the war but he was a great hero, although he never thought of himself that way.

“When he went into the RAF he was living in Yorkshire and would have been a coal miner had the war not come along.

Flight Lieutenant Leslie Dearling who found the birthday card sent to Adolf Hitler.
Flight Lieutenant Leslie Dearling who found the birthday card sent to Adolf Hitler.

“By the time he was 21, he was flying the world’s most powerful plane.”

Thanks to the skill of brave pilots like Leslie who flew specially adapted Spitfires – with guns taken out to make them lighter and faster – on dangerous reconnaissance missions, thousands of British civilian lives were saved.

Leslie captured vital photographs that informed Major General Urquhart about the location of a German Panzer tank division ahead of the Arnhem landings in September 1944.

In fact, his flight is immortalised in the 1977 film A Bridge Too Far starring Sean Connery, Michael Caine and Dirk Bogarde.

Leslie’s reconnaissance photography also brought back crucial information revealing the location of V-2 rocket missile launchers – a feat for which he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC).

Before Leslie, who lived in Lapworth most of his life, died in 1996, Nick asked him about that Potsdam mission and that was when he revealed he’d gone into Hitler’s office.

By the time Nick came into possession of the card, his father had punched a couple of holes in it and put it in an album.

He said: “It’s dated April 1934, which suggests Hitler kept it on his mantlepiece for a decade.

“It’s official German and typically official – not jolly at all.

“I had no idea what to do with it so I took it to the BBC but they wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole, because of the connotations.

Leslie Dearling in his reconnaissance Spitfire during WW2.
Leslie Dearling in his reconnaissance Spitfire during WW2.

“I tried a few other museums, but nobody seems to want it.”

Nick has already donated his father’s flying logbooks to the Imperial War Museum and hopes they will also accept the birthday card.

He pointed out: “It’s of historic importance, so someone ought to do something with it.”



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