Sorry, Felix. Do you want us to start another thread?
No, no not at all, unless you think it would do the topic more justice?
I have been refreshing my memory on the Hess affair. seems like it might have been a combination of both theories I mentioned earlier - he was lured, but also wanted to negotiate peace....
Hitler made a lengthy speech to his assembled Reichstag deputies on May 4, 1941. Rudolf Hess had sat between Hitler and Ribbentrop throughout.
“Ribbentrop was to say a week later that Hess’s eyes had looked completely abnormal all evening and that he had seemed mentally disturbed. Hitler did not notice. Hess was an eccentric, a beloved member of the Party’s Old Guard, a believer in the supernatural and in herbal remedies; but he also had a brain of surprising shrewdness and a personal courage to match. He had been born in Egypt and was unabashedly pro-British. An enthusiastic pilot whose wings had been officially clipped by Hitler since 1933, he nevertheless found opportunities to fly the latest planes through his personal friendship with the director of air armament, Ernst Udet, and the aircraft designer Willy Messerschmitt.
“At the end of Hitler’s Reichstag speech, Hess spoke with Hitler privately for about half an hour ; no record survives. Hitler disclosed a few days later that on this occasion Hess persistently inquired whether he, the Fuhrer, still stood by the program he had set forth in Mein Kampf—of marching side by side with Britain; and that he had confirmed he did. We also have Hess’s statement, ten days later, when he was already in enemy hands, that ‘as recently as May 4, after his Reichstag speech, Hitler declared to me that he had no oppressive demands to make on England.’
“That evening a bulky packet from Rudolf Hess was delivered to the Berghof. Assuming it to contain more of the minister’s interminable memoranda, Hitler pushed the packet aside. Toward noon next day, Sunday May 11, he was standing with General Karl Bodenschatz—Goering’s representative—in the Berghofs Great Hall when there was a commotion and one of Hess’s adjutants burst in, ignoring the protests of the guards. He handed Hitler a slim envelope. Hitler turned it over to Bodenschatz to slit open. There were two pages inside, which the general handed back to him unread. Hitler put on his eyeglasses and began to glance over it indifferently. Suddenly he slumped into a chair and bellowed in a voice that could be heard all over the house: ‘Oh my God, my God ! He has flown to Britain !’... Hess’s adjutant stated unashamedly that his chief had taken off at Augsburg airfield at 5:40 P.M. the previous evening; when Hitler furiously asked why he had not told anybody until now, the adjutant gave his loyalty to Hess as the reason. Hitler swung around on Bodenschatz. ‘How is it, Herr General, that the Luftwaffe let Hess fly although I forbade it ? Get Goering here !’ But the Reichsmarschall was relaxing at his family castle north of Nuremberg.”
The bulky packet from Hess contained about fourteen pages—a long-winded account of his motives for flying and his proposed peace plan. Apparently written in October 1940 with the assistance of Albrecht Haushofer, it dealt with technical aspects of a peace settlement—for example, reparations to be paid to Germany.
“In the shorter letter—which Bodenschatz had just opened—Hess explained that he was flying to Glasgow to meet the Duke of Hamilton, a true friend of Germany whom he had met in 1936; he wanted to try for peace between Germany and Britain before the Russian campaign began. He promised not to betray ‘Barbarossa’ to the British. According to this letter, since November Hess had made three other attempts to reach Scotland; each time an aircraft malfunction had forced him back.”
Hitler found out that Willy Messerschmitt had himself supplied the advanced Messerschmitt fighter Hess had used and that Hess had availed himself of the Y-beams navigation system used by the bomber squadrons.
“It was Ribbentrop who sagely pointed out that if they waited any longer, the British might announce the news at any moment to the world—indeed, they could claim that Hess had brought an official offer for a separate peace between Germany and Britain. It might just split the whole Axis wide open. Hitler was aghast. He ordered Ribbentrop to telephone Ciano, and he at once began to dictate the text of a communique to the German people. Investigations had meanwhile established that Hess had suffered from a bile complaint for some time and had fallen under the sway of nature healers and astrologers. This facilitated the announcement that while Hess had evidently acted from idealistic motives he was in fact quite mad. ‘The Fuhrer decides to go ahead with the announcement,’ wrote Hewel. ‘He insists on including the passage about it being the action of a madman.’ By late afternoon the tenth redraft of the communique was complete and passed by Hitler. In an agony of fear that the British might still launch their propaganda campaign first, assuming Hess had safely arrived, Hitler switched on the radio. At 8 P.M. the German communique was broadcast : the Party officially announced that ‘in a hallucinated state’ Hess had taken off from Augsburg in an aircraft and not been seen since. ‘It is to be feared that Party-member Hess has crashed or met with an accident somewhere.’... Hours passed and then the BBC finally stirred : Rudolf Hess had landed by parachute in Scotland two nights before.
Albrecht Haushofer, a Berlin professor of geopolitics and son of Munich’s eminent Professor Karl Haushofer, had been befriended by Hess many years earlier.
“[Hess] shielded [him] from outrages he might have been subjected to on account of his part-Jewish wife; he had attracted Party hostility by outspoken commentaries on Anglo-German relations in his father’s monthly Zeitschrift fur Geopolitik with prognoses diametrically opposed to those of the National Socialists. (He had since mid-1938 warned of the growing Anglo-American military alliance and of the futility of Germany’s efforts to achieve economic self-sufficiency.) Albrecht Haushofer was summoned to the Obersalzberg on May 12 and ordered to explain his behaviour. He admitted that he had made many attempts to correspond with the Duke of Hamilton through Lisbon and Switzerland but said he had received no reply. Haushofer was allowed to return home, but his telephone was tapped by the Forschungsamt and his house was watched.
“There is a curious echo of this in British government files on Hess. The Duke of Hamilton first learned of Haushofer’s letters from Hess and complained to the government that these peace feelers had never reached him. The secret service requested him to take the matter no further in the national interest.
“On May 13 the Party recovered its composure and circulated a second communique : papers left behind by Hess—who was more familiar with the Fuhrer’s genuine peace proposals than any other person—suggested that he suffered from the hallucination that if he took a personal step with Englishmen known to him from earlier times, he might yet manage to bring about an entente between Germany and Britain. Hitler debated with his advisers about what to do should the British send Hess back. Ribbentrop gained the impression that Hess would be shot. Hans Frank—whom Bormann summoned post-haste to the Berghof along with all the other Party leaders and Gauleiters—later quoted Hitler as telling him: ‘This man is dead as far as I am concerned : whenever and wherever we find him we will hang him.’
“...it was now known that Hess had been “manipulated” by various astrologers, mindreaders, and nature healers who had influenced him to fly to Britain; in doing so he had put the Reich in an impossible predicament with her allies, particularly Italy and Japan. Hewel later described the scene in his diary. As Goering stands behind him with earnest mien “Bormann reads out the letters left by Hess. A dramatic assembly, heavy with emotion. The Fuhrer comes, speaks very humanly, analyses Hess’s act for what it is, and proves he was deranged from his lack of logic : the idea of landing near a castle he has never seen and whose owner, Hamilton, is not even there, etc.;
“Hitler could not have known that Hess had in fact succeeded in navigating in pitch darkness to within twelve miles of his target, had then parachuted safely (no mean feat for a man of forty-seven on his first attempt), and was actually in conversation with the Duke of Hamilton within a matter of hours. Under interrogation, Hess, speaking good English, explained that this was his fourth attempt to fly to Britain. He had got the idea when he was with the Fuhrer during “Yellow,” in June 1940. He had deliberately refrained from attempting the flight while Britain was scoring successes in Libya in case his proposals were interpreted as a sign of German weakness. With the Nazi victories in North Africa and the Balkans the situation had, however, changed. His knowledge of the Luftwaffe’s expansion plans and the submarine construction program made him confident in Germany’s ultimate victory. But Hitler had no desire to inflict slaughter and defeat on Britain: From a long and intimate knowledge of the Fuhrer which had begun eighteen years before in the fortress of Landsberg he could give his word of honor that (unlike the Americans) the Fuhrer had never entertained any designs against the British Empire. Nor had he ever aspired to world domination. Mr. Churchill would not, however, be an acceptable negotiating partner. Hess stated that he had come unarmed and of his own free will, and he asked for his release on parole. Churchill ordered his incarceration for the rest of the war.” Source
So the British Secret Service had been intercepting letters from Hess and therefore knew of his intention to fly to Scotland to negotiate peace. The Duke of Hamilton,
did not know and so must have been quite shocked to see the Deputy Fuhrer turn up on his doorstep in the dead of night - what a picture that would have made. Hess had also apparently been manipulated (or maybe encouraged is a better description of it) into his actions by astrologers, herbalists, mind-readers etc. who were no doubt connected to the British Secret Service - who knows if Crowley, Fleming or Wheatley even?
One of the more unfortunate outcomes of this incident was the rise of Martin Boorman.
WC was definitely a hardball player
And yet, he never remained in London during an air-raid. He was in very close communication with the Air Ministry who would warn him immediately of a forthcoming raid and they knew the targets as they could read the Y-beam. His personal chauffeur has given evidence that he would always have to drive him out of London before any air raid, In fact, the night Coventry was bombed he went scurrying out of London as usual, but just at the last minute the information came through that the target wasn't London, so he returned to Downing Street. He then proceeded to perform his usual party-trick of going up onto the roof in defiance of the Luftwaffe and to show solidarity with Londoners. Needless to say, this party-trick was only ever seen when there was no air-raid scheduled.
Meanwhile, my family, grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews, were all getting the sh-t bombed out of them just over the river. They hated 'Winnie' along with most Londoners - he was 'The War-Monger' to them. Never mind all the grey-magic of the media and the "All pull together spirit of the Blitz" BS in the movies and TV series, it was hell on Earth. He never went on walkabouts in London after he refused to make peace in 1942 (or was it 41?), because it wasn't safe for him.
The garden of the house I was born into still had the Anderson shelter my great-grandfather made... fat lot of good that would have been if a bomb had landed anywhere near it. I suppose it would have saved the need for coffins though. ?
