[2] He was initially enthusiastic about Nazism and in 1933 his article "Herr Hitler and His Policy: March 1933" was published in Douglas Francis Jerrold's The English Review, a journal that was otherwise sceptical about the Nazis despite largely admiring Italian fascism.
[4] He wrote again for the journal in January 1935, claiming in his article "Herr Hitler's Constructive Policy" that many of the stories of Nazi excesses that appeared in the British press were exaggerations and part of "a smoke-screen of anti-Hitler propaganda".
[3] He also accompanied Paul Rykens and Montagu Norman on trips to Germany[3] and was, along with Lord Rothermere, Esmond Harmsworth and George Ward Price (foreign correspondent of The Daily Mail), one of four guests of honour at a banquet thrown by Hitler on 19 December 1934.
[7] Tennant attempted to use the meeting as a basis for a Baldwin visit to Germany but, after some consideration, he declined the invitation and sent his Parliamentary Private Secretary Geoffrey Lloyd in his stead, a decision that Hitler interpreted as a snub.
[12] He was also a prominent financier of the AGF[2] and following its formation he was recognised as the main driving force behind the group, which for a time enjoyed widespread influence in the higher echelons of British society.
[21] Tennant was one of a number of leading pro-German Britons sent to Germany clandestinely with the approval of the British government in 1939 in an attempt to avoid war by conversing with Nazis considered sympathetic to the UK.
[22] To this end he met von Ribbentrop at his castle near Salzburg in July, with the Nazi ambassador telling Tennant that he considered the UK's Polish guarantee as a provocative gesture to Germany.
[23] At the meeting (which had the unofficial approval of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain) von Ribbentrop told Tennant that if the British wanted war with the Nazis then "Germany is ready".