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FROM the bathroom window of his Berlin flat, Colonel Noel Mason-MacFarlane could see where Hitler would stand to watch the crowds celebrating his 50th birthday.

Using a high-powered rifle, the highly decorated Army officer promised his Whitehall superiors that he could assassinate the German leader with a single shot.

Had the Scot, then Britain’s military attaché in the German capital, been allowed to carry out the audacious plan five months before the invasion of Poland in September 1939, World War II would never have happened.

The remarkable story is being told by James MacManus in his new historical novel Midnight in Berlin – a fictional thriller based on Mason-MacFarlane’s extraordinary plan.

Journalist James, 66, said: “I came across his story by accident when I was doing research into Hitler’s life .

“I discovered there had been several plots to assassinate the Führer, including a very credible plan by a Colonel Mason-MacFarlane. I was overwhelmed when I realised how detailed and well thought-out his assassination attempt was.

“On April 20, 1939, his 50th birthday, Hitler would mount the reviewing stand on Berlin’s main avenue at 11am. With a high-powered rifle, Mason-MacFarlane would place himself on the landing of his apartment, 30ft from the bathroom window to avoid muzzle flash and to blanket the sound. Firing through the window, he would kill Hitler with a single head shot.

“As he said at the time, it would have been ‘an easy rifle shot. I could pick the b*****d off from here as easy as winking.’”

The Führer’s birthday parade , organised by Joseph Goebbels, was to be the largest Nazi celebration the city had seen. Every leading Nazi was to be present and would remain at Hitler’s side for several hours, all within sight of the British diplomat’s flat. Mason-MacFarlane even argued there should be little risk of reprisals against British embassy staff if the Gestapo pinpointed the assassin because a swift military coup would remove the Nazi regime.

James said: “British intelligence had learnt the German chief of staff, General Franz Halder, had discussed the idea of removing Hitler the previous autumn.

“Mason-MacFarlane argued that, with Hitler dead, the chief of staff would certainly move for a military coup against the heirs apparent to the Nazi leadership – Goering and Goebbels. Both men were loathed by the German high command.

“It was an ideal opportunity. If only the snobs in Whitehall had listened and allowed him to go ahead with his plan, Mason-MacFarlane would have taken out the man who was to start the world’s most horrific war.”

And the colonel, who would go on to become an Army general and then a Labour MP, had the ability to carry out the killing. He was a crack shot, having learned to shoot as a child on his dad’s farm in Turin, near Forfar.

James said: “Whether the plan was put to Prime Minister Chamberlain is not known but senior members of the Cabinet were told and were quick in their dismissal.

“Lord Halifax, the foreign secretary, summed up the distaste, saying, ‘We have not reached that stage…when we have to

use assassination as a substitute for diplomacy.’ The general view was that the assassination would not be sportsmanlike behaviour.

“This remark was made dismissively to Mason-MacFarlane, probably by someone in the Foreign Office. He later repeated it to his family.

“After 18 months in Berlin as military attaché, the colonel was replaced and given a staff posting in Aldershot.

“However, he remained in the capital long enough to attend the parade at which he had intended to shoot Hitler. There are even photos of him on the reviewing stand, scowling ferociously.”

The Gestapo were well aware of Mason-MacFarlane’s hostility to the regime and had been working to force his removal for some time.

James, who dedicated the novel to the Army officer, said: “It was a joy weaving his story into my novel. It is set on the eve of World War II with the British thinking they could do a deal with Hitler. It was not the dawn of peace – Europe was about to enter its darkest hour.”

Mason-MacFarlane spent a lot of his life in Scotland, as a young man in Forfar and later in the Borders, where his son and daughter settled.

His grandson Michael Hall, 66, who still lives in Galashiels, said: “My grandad was very brave and intelligent. He was outspoken but his views were never blinkered.

“He knew Hitler was a megalomaniac bent on world domination. He knew about the atrocities Germans were carrying out against Jews, gypsies and other political opponents in labour camps as early as 1935.

“I remember my mum telling me his plot had been dismissed with the words, ‘My old boy, it’s just not cricket.’ He must have been so angry at their appeasing attitude. He could have single-handedly stopped the war.”

Michael, who runs Hall’s Auctioneers in Galashiels, was only four when his grandad died in 1953, aged 63, but his mum Mona, who was a Bletchley Park decoder, often talked about her father.

He said: “I’m so proud of my grandfather. He was given the Military Cross and the Distinguished Service Order as well as a knighthood. After leaving the Army, he was a Labour MP.

“It’s just a pity we will never know what would have happened if he had been given the go-ahead to kill Hitler.”