In the 1929 general election, the Liberal Maurice Alfred Gerothwohl finished third in Faversham behind the Tory Adam Maitland and Labour’s D L Aman. Gerothwohl had fought Leicester West in 1924. He was a French literature professor at Bristol University, editing works by Victor Hugo, Molière and Stendhal. In late 1914, he wrote an article arguing that fortresses had been useful in delaying the German advance in Belgium.
In 1921, Gerothwohl was awarded the Cross of Chevalier by the king of Italy. He edited the diaries of Lord D’Abernon, the former ambassador to Berlin, in 1929. He noted that, after the Munich beer hall putsch, Hitler had been jailed for six months and “thereafter fad[ed] into oblivion”.
Stephen Brasher
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This article appears in the 21 Oct 2015 issue of the New Statesman, The 18th-century Prime Minister