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Henry Drummond Wolff (Basingstoke MP)

Henry Maxence Cavendish Drummond Wolff, commonly known as Henry Drummond Wolff, was a British Conservative Party politician. Drummond Wolff was known for his close ties to the far right.

Political career
From early in his political career, Drummond Wolff's outlook was defined by his twin hatreds for laissez-faire capitalism and socialism, opinions that would lead him to become sympathetic to fascism as an alternative. In 1934, Viscount Lymington resigned as MP for Basingstoke, after becoming disillusioned with party politics. Nonetheless, he helped to ensure that his successor as Conservative candidate would be Drummond Wolff, a close political associate. During his brief parliamentary career, he spoke in support of Oswald Mosley, along with other BUF-linked Tories such as Patrick Hannon, John Moore-Brabazon, Vice-Admiral E. A. Taylor and Thomas Moore. Correspondence between Drummond Wolff and an election agent also indicates that, before Donner's selection as Conservative candidate for the 1935 general election could be ratified, he had had to be interviewed by Oswald Mosley, with the Basingstoke Conservative Party as a whole closely linked to the BUF. Such was the notoriety of Drummond Wolff with regards to his support for Nazism that he was used as an unofficial intermediary with Nazi Germany during the late 1930s. In 1939, Conservative Central Office operative and former MI5 spy, Sir Joseph Ball, acting on behalf of Chamberlain, facilitated four lengthy visits to Germany by Drummond Wolff, who undertook negotiations with Helmuth Wohlthat and Walther Hewel, political advisers to Hermann Göring and Adolf Hitler respectively, amongst others. In the last of those trips, Drummond Wolff even held talks with Göring himself. In 1934, he had become a member of the committee of the group which sought to promote trade between the countries within the British Commonwealth and the British Empire. Although close to the BUF, Drummond Wolff did maintain some independence and, as war loomed, he joined Arthur Bryant in establishing Union and Reconstruction, a propaganda organisation that aimed to agitate against any proposed war with Germany. One of a number of similar movements active at the time, it had little influence outside far right circles. Drummond Wolff argued that war with Germany was being promoted by the press, which he claimed was controlled by Jews and leftists, as well as by war capitalists of the United States, and by the Soviet Union which, he argued, saw war as an opportunity for world revolution. The Duke of Westminster, a staunch opponent of war with Germany, was impressed by Drummond Wolff's plan and read it to influential anti-war activists, but nothing came of it. ==Personal life==
Personal life
Drummond Wolff was the grandson of Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, himself also a Conservative MP. Drummond Wolff was married to the American socialite Margaret Fahnestock the daughter of investment banker Gibson Fahnestock and granddaughter of Harris C. Fahnestock whose sons were the founders of Fahnestock & Co. ==Bibliography==
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