The Mammoth Book of Cover-Ups

Rudolf Hess is invariably viewed through the lens of his 1941 mission, which provides a portrait of a sincere if somewhat neurotic loner who, cast out from the inner sanctum of Nazism, wished peace in a time of total war. Hess was the Good Nazi, a status underlined by his lenient sentence at Nuremberg: the other main leaders of Nazi Germany were condemned to death or, like Goring, committed suicide. Hess was condemned to prison. In truth, Hess was an ardent anti-Semite and, along with Hitler, the founder of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) in 1920. So close and loyal to Hitler was Hess thereafter that fellow Nazis dubbed Hess «the Fraulein» — Hitler’s wife. Foreign journalists also noted the strength of the men’s relationship: Pierre van Passen of the Canadian Evening World thought Hess to be Hitler’s «alter ego». Time did little to diminish the closeness. There was no fall from grace for Hess; he disliked some aspects of the bloody purge of the SA, and Hitler was no fan of Hess’s «biodynamic» eating habits, modelled on the alternative philosophy of Rudolf Steiner, but otherwise the men were in complete accord. If they hadn’t been, Hitler would not have maintained Hess as his right-hand man.

So, when he flew to Scotland in 1941, Hess did not do so as a lone, powerless, out-of-favour maverick. He can only have gone as Hitler’s personal peace emissary. Hitler’s later rants against «madman» Hess were merely attempts to lay down a smokescreen over a diplomatic debacle. (Tellingly, Hitler took little or no action after 1941 against Hess’s family, as was his wont with traitors; on the contrary, he ensured that Hess’s wife remained in her villa and received a state pension.) Hitler desperately wanted peace with Britain in mid-1941 because he sought above all to turn his entire military attention to the real enemy: Bolshevik Russia. War with Britain had never been Hitler’s intention; indeed, in Mein Kampf he had saluted Britain as Germany’s «most valuable ally in the world». His fatal miscalculation had been to presume that Britain would endlessly turn a blind eye to the Nazi appropriation of central Europe.

Hitler’s hope for reconciliation with Britain was not an unreasonable one. Although it is generally swept under the national carpet, there existed in wartime Britain a distinct vein of sentiment which, for reasons of pro-Nazism or pro-pacifism, did not want the conflict to continue. One peace proponent was Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, the Duke of Hamilton, RAF wing commander and privy councillor, and a member of the Anglo-German Club. Something of Hamilton’s sentiments regarding the war can be gauged by his letter to The Times of 6 October 1939, when the war was a month old:

Sir,

Many, like yourself, have had the opportunity of hearing a great deal of what the men and women of my generation are thinking. There is no doubt in any quarter, irrespective of any party, that this country had no choice but to accept the challenge of Hitler’s aggression against one country in Europe after another. If Hitler is right when he claims that the whole of the German nation is with him in his cruelties and treacheries, both within Germany and without, then this war must be fought to the bitter end. It may well last for many years, but the people of the British Empire will not falter in their determination to see it through.

But I believe that the moment the menace of aggression and bad faith has been removed, war against Germany becomes wrong and meaningless. This generation is conscious that injustices were done to the German people in the era after the last war. There must be no repetition of that. To seek anything but a just and comprehensive peace to lay to rest the fears and discords in Europe would be a betrayal of our fallen.

I look forward to the day when a trusted Germany will again come into her own and believe that there is such a Germany, which would be loath to inflict wrong on other nations such as she would not like to suffer herself. That day may be far off, but when it comes, then hostilities could and should cease, and all efforts be concentrated on righting the wrongs in Europe by free negotiations between the disputing parties, all parties binding themselves to submit their disputes to an impartial equity tribunal in case they cannot reach agreement.