Prof Arthur Pillans Laurie FRSE LLD (1861–1949) was a Scottish chemist who pioneered the scientific analysis of paintings, especially by Rembrandt.

[5] In 1915, Laurie complained that his eclectic interests were hindering his career as he wrote about his inability to get himself elected to the Royal Society: "I believe the trouble is I am neither 'fish, flesh, nor good red herring'".

[6] Laurie stood as a candidate for Parliament at the 1929 general election in the constituency of Edinburgh South for the Liberal Party, finishing second.

[7] Laurie believed that there was a possibility that the new government of Neville Chamberlain might go to war with Germany on the account of a conflict in Eastern Europe and wanted the Dominion prime ministers to dissuade him from that prospect.

[9] Laurie depicted living conditions in the Sudetenland as abysmal and claimed falsely that most Sudeten German children were suffering from hunger as he accused the Czechs of vacuuming up all of their wealth.

[9] Laurie wrote that he believed the main dangers to European peace were the French premier Léon Blum and the Soviet foreign commissar Maxim Litvinov.

In The Case for Germany, Laurie professed to be taking the stance of an objective scientist who reached his conclusions based upon a strictly empirical approach.

[10] At the beginning of The Case for Germany, Laurie wrote: "It is with admiration and gratitude for the great work he has done for the German people that I dedicate this book to the Führer.

"[16] On 26 July 1939 Laurie attended a dinner hosted by Sir Oswald Mosley and Lady Diana Mosley whose other attendees included the Conservative MPs Jocelyn Lucas, John Moore-Brabazon and Archibald Maule Ramsay; George Ward Price, the "extra-special correspondent" for The Daily Mail newspaper; Philip Farrar, the private secretary to Lord Salisbury; Admiral Barry Domvile of The Link; the journalist A. K. Chesterton; and the famous military historian J. F. C.

[17] The principle fear expressed by those attending the dinner was that another war came, the British empire would be so weakened as to go into decline, thereby allowing so-called "inferior races" to take over the world.

In an article entitled "An Open Letter to the Young Men of Britain" published in Action, the official newspaper of the British Union of Fascists (BUF), on 2 September 1939, Laurie — who knew that Britain would almost certainly declare war on Germany the next day — appealed to British servicemen to desert rather than fight in what he called the "Jews' War".

[10] In "An Open Letter", Laurie began with the statement: "Germany has committed the unforgivable sin of refusing borrow money from international financiers and so they must be punished".