IN the years leading to World War Two, relations between Britain and Nazi Germany were becoming increasingly strained.

Then-prime minister, Nevile Chamberlain, was pursuing a policy of appeasement, but Hitler’s Germany was rapidly re-arming.

One of the men charged with the development of Germany’s military might was Reichsminister of War, general Werner von Blomberg.

In 1937, von Blomberg was in Britain for the coronation of George VI as the German official representative.

While in the country, he visited the tank regiment at Bovington.

During his visit, the general and his retinue stayed at the clifftop Branksome Tower Hotel, staying in the luxurious tower suite, with sweeping views across the golden sands of Bournemouth beach.

Shirley Critchley’s family owned the hotel.

(Image: Newsquest)

“Shortly before World War Two, he came with his retinue and they occupied the tower suite, from which they could get an uninterrupted view of the whole of Poole Bay and Studland, all the way around to Old Harry Rocks,” Shirley, now 92, said.

“It was later found, apparently, when documents were recovered after the, you know, after the victory, that that area had been earmarked as a potential success place to launch an invasion.

“That's the part which really, when I was thinking about D Day and all these commemorative events which have taken place, I thought, my goodness, wouldn't it have been so different?

“They were obviously there to spy.”

Shirley’s father and brother served in the Tank Regiment, and she said she finds it ‘unbelievable’ the British had been ‘so naïve’ to let the general visit the tanks at Bovington.

She remembers being told staff members at the hotel had defied the German group by refusing to return the Nazi salute to the group as they left.

Looking back on the six wartime years living on the clifftop, remembering that she used to go to the clifftop to ‘see if the Germans were coming’.

“My horror was very real,” Shirley said. “I was a child and I thought they were going to invade.

“I had a draw from the chest of drawers and I made it into something like the usherettes had in the cinemas where they sold ice cream.

“I thought, well, if the Germans come up the cliff, I'll be all right, because my drawer was full of escape material, like Horlicks, and I was going to be all right because I knew where to hide.”

“I was going to hide and live in the woods.”

The hotel closed its doors in 1973 and was demolished. It was replaced with the Branksome Towers block of flats.

Werner von Blomberg was replaced as minister of war in a scandal in 1938, before his death of cancer in detention at Nuremberg in 1946.