Hitler, British Officials Met in WWII Run-Up

Recently discovered pictures show representatives of a U.K. veterans charity meeting with Adolf Hitler and other Nazi leaders in the run-up to World War II.

In the pictures and a film from July 1935, Chairman Major Francis Fetherston-Godley of the Royal British Legion met Hitler and shook hands with Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess, according to a report on the website of the Telegraph newspaper.

The six British Legion delegates also met with Hermann Goering, the commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe, and Heinrich Himmler, who headed the SS.

A documentary crew told the newspaper that the delegation traveled to Nazi Germany on a fact-finding mission of the country's veterans organizations. (Watch video above) The British Legion appears to serve the same purpose as the USO and the Veterans of Foreign Wars in the United States. However, a Nazi propaganda team apparently hijacked the trip and had the officials meet with political leaders instead, creating the appearance that the U.K. and Germany were united.

"The purpose of the visit was very honorable," British Legion spokesman Liam Maguire told the Telegraph. "It was done with the best intentions ... the Legion was exploited by an evil group of people for their own purposes."