The Rise of the Fourth Reich

by Jim Marrs

  Voluntarily returning to Germany, Hess joined Hitler in Landsberg Prison after being convicted of conspiracy to commit treason. Due to the political climate at the time, both men were released within a year. During their months of imprisonment, Hess became a close confidant to Hitler and helped produce Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf. Hess edited, rewrote, and organized the book so extensively that some researchers believe he should have been credited as coauthor. “As far as I know, Hess actually dictated many chapters of that book,” Haushofer told interrogators in 1945.

  Following the reorganization of the Nazi Party in 1925, Hess became Hitler’s private secretary. He moved upward through other major party positions until 1933, shortly after Hitler became chancellor of Germany, when he was appointed deputy fuehrer. It was Hess who initiated the “Heil Hitler!” salute and was the first to call Hitler “mein Fuehrer.”

  Furthermore, as a member of the Geheimer Kabinettsrat—the Nazi Secret Cabinet Council—and the Ministerial Council for the defense of the Reich, Hess was well aware of the secret work to develop a German atomic bomb. Proof of this knowledge came during an interview with Britain’s home secretary Sir John Simon, following his flight to England. “[O]ne day sooner or later this weapon will be in our hand and…I can only say that it will be more terrible than anything that has gone before,” Hess revealed.

  It is clear that Hess was much more powerful and well connected than is generally reported. He was the person closest to Hitler, one who shared his aspirations and beliefs. On the eve of war in 1939, Hess was even named the successor to Hitler after Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering.

  THE EXCEPTIONAL POWER and position of Rudolf Hess demands close scrutiny of his ill-fated flight to England and its consequences. Just such a study was undertaken in 2001 by three British authors—Lynn Picknett, Clive Prince, and Stephen Prior. “It soon becomes apparent that the whole Hess affair, from 1941 onward, is riddled with so many contradictions and anomalies that it is obvious that the British authorities were desperate to conceal something,” they concluded. “Judging by the fact that they are still desperate to conceal it, common sense dictates that they deem this secret to be unsuitable for public consumption, even after sixty years.”

  A detailed study of Hess’s flight clearly indicates that it was not just a sudden whim of an unstable individual. There is evidence of foreknowledge in Germany. Hess prepared for the flight meticulously over a period of months, even having famed aircraft designer Willy Messerschmitt modify a twin-engine Messerschmitt-110. Hess also received special flight training from Messerschmitt’s chief test pilot, as well as Hitler’s personal pilot, Hans Baur—evidence that Hitler had knowledge of Hess’s plans. On his flight, Hess carried the visiting cards of both Haushofer and his son, Albrecht Haushofer, yet another indication of his intent as a peace mission, since the elder Haushofer had long been an advocate of maintaining friendly relations with Britain as a cornerstone of German politics.

  According to the French scholars Michel Bertrand and Jean Angelini (writing under the name of Jean-Michel Angebert), Haushofer passed along to Hess the names of members of the Order of the Golden Dawn, an occult society in England, as well as names of supporters of a peace initiative, such as the duke of Hamilton, the duke of Bedford, and Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick. The Golden Dawn, most popularly connected to England’s foremost occultist, Aleister “the Beast” Crowley, was an outgrowth of the Theosophical Society, from which much Nazi mysticism was derived, and had close ties with the Thule Society.

  According to some theories, British Intelligence manipulated Hess’s belief in the occult to provoke his flight to England. Oddly enough, this scheme involved Crowley as well as British Intelligence agent Ian Fleming, who would later write the popular James Bond novels. “Via a Swiss astrologer known to Fleming, astrological advice was passed along to Hess (again, via the Haushofers and by Dr. Ernst Schulte-Strathaus, an astrological adviser and occultist on Hess’s staff since 1935) advocating a peace mission to England,” wrote Levenda. “May 10, 1941, was selected as the appropriate date, since an unusual conjunction of six planets in Taurus (that had the soothsayers humming for months previous) would take place at that time.” Once in England, Hess was to be debriefed by fellow occultist Crowley.

  One clue that such an outrageous plan may have been put into operation was somewhat supported by Nazi armaments minister Albert Speer, who wrote in later years, “[I]n Spandau Prison, Hess assured me in all seriousness that the idea had been inspired in him in a dream by supernatural forces.” But whatever Hess’s motivations, it is clear that foreknowledge of his flight existed in Britain as well as Germany. In fact, both Haushofer’s son and Hess wrote to the duke of Hamilton, whom Hess had met briefly during the 1936 Berlin Olympics, in hopes of initiating peace talks between the two men, perhaps even opening a direct link to King George VI.

  On orders of the government, Hamilton did not reply. However, one letter to Hamilton from the younger Haushofer was shown to British foreign secretary Lord Halifax and air minister Sir Archibald Sinclair. “Both of these ministers were supportive of the peace initiative, which had to be kept officially secret and distance [sic] from Churchill,” wrote Picknett, Prince, and Prior. “So, while it is true to say that Hamilton showed the letter to his superiors, what is omitted is the fact that they kept quiet about it [emphasis in the original].”

  It should be recalled that the Windsor family have always been sensitive about their German extraction. Peace with their relatives would have been very desirable during the war years. In 2000, senior British government sources confirmed that private letters between the Queen Mother and Lord Halifax showed hostility toward Churchill and even a willingness to submit to Nazi occupation if the monarchy was preserved. Even Churchill, who was tightly connected to the empire-builders of Britain, made it clear that the object of the war was to stop Germany—not the Nazis. “You must understand that this war is not against Hitler or National Socialism,” Churchill once stated, “but against the strength of the German people, which is to be smashed once and for all, regardless whether it is in the hands of Hitler or a Jesuit priest.”

  In a letter to Lord Robert Boothby, Churchill explained that “Germany’s unforgivable crime before the second world war was her attempt to extricate her economic power from the world’s trading system and to create her own exchange mechanism which would deny world finance its opportunity to profit.”

  It also must be recalled that in 1941, despite the successful Battle of Britain, England was economically strangled and near defeat. At the time Hitler seemed unstoppable and it was quite easy to envision a Nazi victory. The aristocracy, industrialists, bankers, and even the royal family were eager for peace. “Hess did not imagine a peace group,” concluded Picknett, Prince, and Prior, “nor was it invented by MI6, but its existence at such a level [as the royals] would explain why so much about the Hess affair was—and continues to be—hushed up.”

  As for Hitler, Germany was preparing to strike Russia, and he did not want a two-front war, the very situation that caused Germany’s defeat in World War I. Hitler wanted England as an ally against communism. “With England alone [as an ally], one’s back being covered, could one begin the new Germanic invasion [of Russia],” Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf. In other words, Hitler needed peace with Britain before undertaking an attack on Russia.

  Securing peace on the Western Front may have become an urgent priority for Hitler. According to former Soviet military intelligence officer Vladimir Rezun (writing under the pen name Viktor Suvorov), Hitler was forced to launch a preemptive assault against the Soviet Union in June 1941, to forestall an attack on Western Europe by Stalin in July.

  Suvorov’s work has been published in eighty-seven editions in eighteen languages, yet has received virtually no mention in the U.S. corporate mass media, despite the fact that his assertions turn conventional history upside down. Most people have been taught that Stalin naively trusted Hitler and was totally surprised by Hitler’s attack.<
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  Admiral N. G. Kuznetsov, who in 1941 was the Soviet Navy minister and a member of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party, was quoted by Suvorov as stating in his postwar memoirs, “For me there is one thing beyond all argument—J. V. Stalin not only did not exclude the possibility of war with Hitler’s Germany, on the contrary, he considered such a war…inevitable…. J. V. Stalin made preparations for war…wide and varied preparations—beginning on dates…which he himself had selected. Hitler upset his calculations.” While Suvorov’s conclusions grate against the conventional view of Hitler’s attack on Russia, he has provided a compelling argument. Suvorov pointed out that by June 1941, Stalin had massed vast numbers of troops and equipment along Russia’s European frontier, not to defend the Motherland but in preparation for an attack westward. Stalin’s motive was to bring communism to Europe by force, a plan he expressed in a 1939 speech. “The experience of the last twenty years has shown that in peacetime the Communist movement is never strong enough to seize power. The dictatorship of such a party will only become possible as the result of a major war,” stated Stalin.

  Noting that when the German attack began on June 22, 1941, they could field a mere 3,350 tanks, mostly lightly armored and gunned, as compared to the Russians 24,000 tanks, many of superior armor and armament, retired U.S. Department of Defense official Daniel W. Michaels wrote, “Stalin elected to strike at a time and place of his choosing. To this end, Soviet development of the most advanced offensive weapons systems, primarily tanks, aircraft, and airborne forces, had already begun in the early 1930s…. The German ‘Barbarossa’ attack shattered Stalin’s well-laid plan to ‘liberate’ all of Europe.”

  Suvorov supported his contention by pointing to the fact that Russian troops were prepared to attack, not defend, which led to the early German victories; that Russian troops had been issued maps only of Eastern European cities, not for the defense of Russia; that Russian troops had been issued Russian-German phrase books with such expressions as “Stop transmitting or I’ll shoot”; and that none of Stalin’s top commanders were ever held accountable for the Barbarossa debacle, since they had all merely followed Stalin’s orders.

  Suvorov concludes, “Stalin became the absolute ruler of a vast empire hostile to the West, which had been created with the help of the West. For all that, Stalin was able to preserve his reputation as naive and trusting, while Hitler went down in history as the ultimate aggressor. A multitude of books have been published in the West based on the idea that Stalin was not ready for war while Hitler was.”

  He also said the resources of Stalin’s war machine have been underestimated. “Despite its grievous losses, it had enough strength to withdraw and gather new strength to reach Berlin. How far would it have gone had it not sustained that massive blow on 22 June, if hundreds of aircraft and thousands of tanks had not been lost, had it been the Red Army and not the Wehrmacht which struck the first blow? Did the German Army have the territorial expanse behind it for withdrawal? Did it have the inexhaustible human resources, and the time, to restore its army after the first Soviet surprise attack?”

  Perhaps the best support for Suvorov’s claims came from Hitler himself. “Already in 1940 it became increasingly clear from month to month that the plans of the men in the Kremlin were aimed at the domination, and thus the destruction, of all of Europe. I have already told the nation of the build-up of Soviet Russian military power in the East during a period when Germany had only a few divisions in the provinces bordering Soviet Russia. Only a blind person could fail to see that a military build-up of unique world-historical dimensions was being carried out. And this was not in order to protect something that was being threatened, but rather only to attack that which seemed incapable of defense…. I may say this today: if the wave of more than twenty thousand tanks, hundreds of divisions, tens of thousands of artillery pieces, along with more than ten thousand airplanes, had not been kept from being set into motion against the Reich, Europe would have been lost,” the fuehrer stated in his speech on December 11, 1941, when he declared war against the United States.

  Of course, the victors always write history, so whether Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union was sheer aggression or a necessary preemptive strike will probably be argued for many years. But, if it proves true that Hitler was merely forestalling an imminent attack by the Soviet Union, it places the history of World War II in an entirely different context. It would certainly go far in explaining Hitler’s otherwise inexplicable actions in starting a two-front war, the very situation he had warned against in Mein Kampf. It also would help explain why Franklin Roosevelt, at the bidding of the globalists, was arming the Soviet Union in blatant violation of the Neutrality Acts of 1935, 1936, and 1937. By the end of 1940, with all Europe under German control and Britain threatened, they may have determined to stop Hitler.

  Hitler clearly indicated what he saw as the machinations undertaken to prevent any negotiated end to hostilities in 1941. In a speech to the Reichstag less than a week before Hess’s arrival in Scotland, he declared, “All my endeavors to come to an understanding with Britain were wrecked by the determination of a small clique, which, whether from motives of hate or for the sake of material gain, rejected every German proposal for an understanding due to their resolve, which they never concealed, to resort to war, whatever happened.”

  Picknett, Prince, and Prior even argue that Seelowe—or Sea Lion, the code name for the proposed German invasion of England—was a “sham right from the beginning,” an effort by Hitler to distract Stalin by feinting west when he actually planned to strike to the east. It was merely a cover for the mobilization of men and equipment needed for the invasion of the Soviet Union. One clue that this tactic was in play can be seen in the fact that Hitler, who was known for constantly interfering with his generals on the smallest of details, never showed any real interest in the plans for an invasion of England, according to German military historian Egbert Kieser. These authors, along with other historians, explain that Hitler’s strange order to halt the German advance at Dunkirk allowed the British Army to escape the continent. Hitler wanted his future ally intact.

  And the prelude to such an alliance was Hess’s peace initiative. On May 10, 1941, when Hess’s ME-110 arrived over Scotland, he was to have landed at an airstrip near the Hamilton ancestral home, negotiate peace terms with the anti-Churchill faction, and then be flown to Sweden as the first leg of a return trip home. This faction was prepared to oust Churchill and agree to a ceasefire with Germany.

  This proposition may not be as absurd as it first sounds. Picknett, Prince, and Prior noted, “The extravagant postwar mythologizing of Churchill has obscured the fact that he remained in a very insecure position politically for at least the first two years of his premiership, largely because it was well known that he did not—to put it mildly—enjoy the support and confidence of the king.”

  The notion of an internal coup against Churchill was even broached to President Roosevelt by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. In a memorandum written only a week before the Hess flight, Hoover informed Roosevelt, “[I]t was reported that the Duke of Windsor entered into an agreement which in substance was to the effect that if Germany was victorious in the war, Hermann Goering through his control of the army would overthrow Hitler and would thereafter install the Duke of Windsor as the King of England.”

  Interestingly, Hess’s flight brought him through the weakest section of the British coastal radar net, plus he overflew a Royal Air Force base twice without provoking any response—clues that orders had been given somewhere along the chain of command to facilitate his arrival. But he missed his landing spot and, low on fuel, finally was forced to bail out over a farm just south of Glasgow. Unarmed, his ankle broken from the jump, he was captured by a farmer with a pitchfork. The Home Guard quickly became involved and the whole secret operation was blown. Although Hess initially claimed to be a Luftwaffe pilot named Alfred Horn, this subterfuge quickly failed. “Horn” kept asking to
be taken to the duke of Hamilton.

  The whole scheme was a massive embarrassment to all concerned. Everyone, including Hitler, had to disavow any connection with the plot. After all, for Hitler to admit that he was preparing to make peace with Britain would have tipped off Stalin that a German attack on Russia was imminent.

  British intelligence found itself conflicted over the Hess affair. “MI6 was supportive of a negotiated peace with Germany, as it saw Communist Russia as the real enemy,” noted the three authors, “whereas SOE [Special Operations Executive] was in favor of an alliance with Stalin against Hitler. As the Prime Minister’s creation, SOE was naturally pro-Churchill.” This rivalry led to strange occurrences along Hess’s path to prison. He was moved to a variety of locations, some recollections of his whereabouts conflicting with others. There was every opportunity for pulling a switch before Hess was finally locked up in the Tower of London.

  Picknett, Prince, and Prior introduced yet another mystery—the death of George, the Duke of Kent, King George VI’s youngest brother and the first member of the royal family to die while on active military service since the fifteenth century. The duke, like others in the royal family, was an admirer of the Nazis and was likely to have joined a peace group in a negotiated peace. He also served as an unofficial intelligence officer to his brother, the king. (It may be noteworthy that in 1939, King George installed the duke as the grand master of English Freemasonry at a ceremony at Olympia in West London.)

  Superficially, the duke’s death on August 25, 1942, was the result of a routine wartime air accident. It was reported that the Sunderland flying boat in which he was a passenger crashed into a low hill called Eagles Rock, in Caithness, Scotland. The official account of the accident said the seaplane was taking the duke on a morale-boosting mission to Iceland when the pilot changed course “for reasons unknown,” descended through clouds without making sure he was above water, and crashed into a hillside. However, the complete file containing the details of the crash, made by a court of inquiry, has disappeared and anomalies abound.