A revelatory look at how the British royal family became divided by two world wars.

Queen Victoria dreamt that her Coburg dynasty would unite Europe in an extended family network via a series of dynastic marriages. Her eldest daughter, Vicky, married the future German Emperor in 1855, and by the time Victoria died in 1901, six of her eight children had married German royals, and her 42 grandchildren resided in palaces and castles across the continent.

Victoria hoped this soft power would safeguard peace and foster constitutional government based on the British model. Never again would Europe be torn apart by power-mad dictators such as Napoleon Bonaparte. However, Victoria's high-handedness, the arrogance and stupidity of her grandchildren, including the peculiarities of Kaiser Wilhelm, and the aggressive German nationalism of the 20th Century put paid to her vision of a united Europe.

In Tea with Hitler, author Dean Palmer pulls together for the first time all the individual stories to provide the complete picture of the fractured Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family during wartime.