Roland Hill (2 December 1920 – 21 June 2014)[1] was a German-born British journalist and author of the first modern biography of Lord Acton.

[2] He was born in Hamburg to Rudolf Hess (a sugar trader) and to his mother, an opera singer.

After Hitler's rise to power, the family moved successively to Prague, Vienna and then Milan.

He took up journalism and at the outbreak of the Second World War he was in London, working for Austrian and German newspapers.

He later joined a Scottish Infantry regiment in the British Army,[3] changing his name in case he was captured.