Last British Hero

Richard Seaman was an enigma. One of Europe's leading Grand Prix drivers in the 1930s, he was a patriotic Englishman who became the only non-German driver in the Mercedes racing team, which was the pride of Hitler's Germany. A cocky, flamboyant daredevil, Seaman was initially admired by Hitler and seen as a useful propaganda tool. But, as war loomed ever closer, Seaman came to be seen as a threat. With suspicions mounting, an off-the-cuff joke about getting rid of Hitler almost certainly sealed his fate. Sixty-six years after the British Government declared his death following a horrific crash at the 1939 Belgian Grand Prix 'a tragic accident', "The Last British Hero" reveals that it was anything but. Seaman had become entangled in a perilous web through his connections with the British Secret Service, his involvement with the wild, drug-fuelled 1930s racing crowd, the upset that his marriage to the daughter of the co-founder of BMW caused to a Nazi officer, and his mother's affair with Hitler's foreign minister.;Such is the level of cover-up surrounding his death that a group of German industrialists recently prevented the recovery of Seaman's wrecked Mercedes car, believed to be buried close to his former family home in Worcestershire.