Remarkable letters detailing a Kent headmistress' "respect and gratitude" to Adolf Hitler are among a collection of documents going under the hammer at an auction of militaria this week.

They were written before and during an educational exchange visit to Berlin by 16 girls from Simon Langton School in Canterbury in 1937.

In them the then headmistress, Miss N Campling thanks Hitler for his "warm-hearted hospitality".

Yet five years later in June 1942, the Führer ordered the bombing of Canterbury in what became known as the Baedeker Raids in which many buildings were destroyed - ironically including the girls' school which was then in Whitefriars.

The correspondence between the school, its head of governors Hewlett Johnson, who was Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, and Hitler's staff and ministers have been in a private collection for 40 years. But they are being sold by C&T Auctioneers and Valuers in Ashford.

In them they detail the lengths the Canterbury group went to try and meet Hitler face to face during their visit.

The girls, aged about 15, hoped to present him with gifts including a photo of Canterbury Cathedral and a presentation copy of The Canterbury Tales.

But the meeting never happened, as Hitler is believed to have declined, believing the Dean of Canterbury to be 'pro-Communist'.

But he did allow his ministers to do so and the school party was shown around the Reich Chancellery by Otto Meissner, head of the Office of the President of Germany.

The archive contains several black and white photos of the meeting as the smartly-dressed girls in bonnets handed Meissner a photo.

On it was a signed declaration from the school's headmistress expressing her 'respect' and 'gratitude' to the Nazis for facilitating the visit.

It reads: "To the Fuhrer and Reich Chancellor, from the Simon Langton Girls' School in Canterbury, as a mark of respect and of gratitude for the warm-hearted hospitality which we were able to enjoy during our exchange visit to Germany."

Another letter in the collection discloses that the girls considered their visit to the Chancellery the 'high point' of their time in Germany.

The previous year, Simon Langton had welcomed German school girls from Halle who had enchanted their hosts with folk songs and dances.

A letter in the archive being auctioned, signed by Dr Heinrich Doehle, of the Reich Chancellery, dated March 15, 1937, states: "On 5th and 6th April this year, 16 English schoolgirls will be in Berlin.

"They want to bring greetings to the Fuhrer from the Dean of Canterbury... The Dean is a clergyman, who comes under the Archbishop of Canterbury.

"Unlike the latter, he is supposed to be friendly towards Germany. The schoolgirls are apparently ready to travel to Berchtesgaden, if the Fuhrer should be there.

"I have replied that the visit, since it falls outside the bounds of normal practice, will perhaps not be possible."

An extract from a letter by Dr Schulz zur Wiesch, of the Advisory Centre for Study Visits in English-speaking countries, addressed to the Chancellery, states: "This is in return for an exchange visit by a group from a school in Halle last summer in a camp set up by the Simon Langton School.

"The German group understood how to gain the interest not only of the school, but also of the general public in Canterbury, by their mode of behaviour there, and especially by their performance of the folk songs and dances.

"The work of our group in this way gained such a significance - far beyond the normal run of school exchanges - that the Dean of Canterbury interested himself personally, to a very special degree, in the idea of German-British school exchange visits.

"The sympathy of this important dignitary went so deep that he involved himself personally in the German-British camp."

Militaria specialist at C&T Auctioneers, Tim Harper, has valued the collection of letters and photos at about £600.

He said: 'There is some fascinating paperwork and photos which shed light on the schoolgirls' trip to Berlin just two years before the countries were at war.

"A lot of people were perhaps naive to Hitler and thought he was full of bluster but not a threat, while some admired his work policies.

"We believe these were the only British schoolgirls to visit the chancellery and in hindsight the trip does seem inappropriate."

The sale takes place today and tomorrow.

Read more: All the latest news from Canterbury