Hess, Hitler and Churchill

by Peter Padfield

  It is what happened. Colonel Scott reported Dr Graham’s opinion that Hess had crossed over the border to insanity to the Prisoners of War Directorate that afternoon and received a call back later to say that Colonel Graham would be relieved over the weekend by a psychiatrist. He noted in his diary that this was ‘all to the good’, suggesting that he at least was not party to any plot.43

  THE ASSASSINS

  On the night of 27/28 May, the night before Hess revealed his anxieties to Lieutenant Malone, German parachutists landed in England, apparently on a mission to silence him. They came down near Luton on the assumption that he had been taken to the Air Intelligence Interrogation Centre less than 20 miles away at Trent Park, Cockfosters. There is no trace of the mission in German records, and it is difficult to imagine why it should have been launched on such inadequate intelligence; difficult to imagine how it could have been expected to succeed. Nevertheless, the story, disclosed in 1979 by Lieutenant Colonel John McCowen in the Luton Herald,44 can now be supported by an equally strange entry from Guy Liddell’s diary.45

  The Double-Cross Committee was running a double agent named Wulf Schmidt, alias Harry Williamson, code-named TATE, and on the night of 26/27 May a message came through from the Abwehr that money would be dropped for TATE on the following night during the course of a bombing raid near Luton. It would be contained in the thick ends of ‘four birch tree branches, each a metre long’.46 The operation was later cancelled ‘on the excuse that the plane was not available’, but four MI5 men were in any case sent to the area to observe. Guy Liddell noted:

  in the middle of the night a certain Major McCallum [sic] turned up at the offices of the Superintendent of the Beds. police. He had an extraordinary story about a man who was going to be dropped by parachute in order that he should assassinate HESS. He said he came from some anti-aircraft brigade. In order to convince the police of his bona-fides he took them out to see his Brigadier who was surrounded by A.A. guns and searchlights. The Home Guard happened to be doing a night exercise and were roped in. Hundreds of men appear to have been walking about all night all over the country …47

  Colonel McCowen’s post-war story was somewhat different: not just one assassin, but several German Commandos had been dropped; and two or three were captured.48 Liddell’s diary entry has nothing about parachutists being caught, and his summary of enemy agents arriving by parachute lists only one name for May 1941, and that long beforehand on the 12th.49 As McCowen told the Luton Herald, the details of the parachutists’ capture and what happened to them subsequently ‘is one of the missing chapters’.50

  The episode, beset as it is by problems of verification, would hardly be worth recounting were it not for the source of McCowen’s information about the assassins: none other than Willi Messerschmitt. McCowen, in May 1941 a Major on Air Vice Marshal Trafford Leigh Mallory’s staff, expanded on this in 1990:

  Messerschmitt was aware of the R.A.F.’s ‘Y’ service which listened in to traffic, and he sent a coded message to Leigh Mallory – whom he presumably knew before the war – saying that German para­chutists would be dropped in the early hours of 28 May – about 2.0 am. – in a bombing raid at Luton – as they believed Hess might be at the prisoners’ interrogation centre at Cockfosters – to eliminate Hess.51

  Leigh Mallory sent for McCowen and told him about the parachutists: ‘You’re an army officer. Get cracking! We’ll support you as much as we can with the R.A.F. Move a mixed brigade of guns and searchlights at short notice!’ McCowen relayed the order to a colleague in command of a mixed brigade of guns and searchlights at Windsor, who moved his unit to Luton; he also told the commander of a Home Guard battalion exercising in the area that they were to be out and about all night. McCowen could not have seen Liddell’s diary entry about the anti-aircraft brigade and the Home Guard ‘walking about all night’ at this time since the diaries were not open to the public until 2005, and the entry quoted for 28 May is not in any case in the published edition.52

  McCowen believed that Churchill had been warned about Hess coming over, probably by Messerschmitt through Leigh Mallory; and it will be recalled that Messerschmitt told Lord Colyton after the war that he had been at the Augsburg airstrip when Hess took off for Scotland.53 The full story of these communications must remain speculative since Leigh Mallory died in an air crash in 1944.

  LORD SIMON

  The psychiatrist chosen to look after Hess in place of Dr Graham was Major Henry V. Dicks of the Royal Army Medical Corps. He had been born in Estonia to English-German parents of Jewish blood – an insensitive choice perhaps, but he spoke fluent German and appears to have maintained professional objectivity with his Nazi patient. He arrived on 30 May with the head of British Army psychiatry, Colonel J.R. Rees, in time for lunch. Afterwards Rees had a long talk with Hess, finding him anxious, tense and depressed, but ‘certainly not today insane in the sense that would make one consider certification’. Rees judged Hess’s extreme depression adequately explained by his current situation and sense of failure.54

  By this date Lord Simon had agreed, after much hesitation, to Eden’s request to pose as a peace negotiator, and after dinner that evening Foley told Hess that a high representative of the Foreign Office was to visit him to open negotiations. Hess replied that he would not speak unless a German witness was present, and reminded Foley that he had already put forward the names of two German internees; and once again he asked to see the Duke of Hamilton and Ivone Kirkpatrick.55 Foley reported to Menzies:

  In his confused way he seems to think that they [Hamilton and Kirkpatrick] are outside the political clique or Secret Service ring which is preventing him from meeting the proper peace people and the King. He reiterated that he had come here of his own free will, trusting in the chivalry of the King.56

  The question of peace negotiations remained a matter of highest sensitivity and potential danger for Churchill. It is significant that even Eden’s Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs, R.A. Butler, had been kept in ignorance of what Hess was saying; he was, of course, an appeaser. To a querulous request he sent for ‘a little more information’, Cadogan had replied that he (Butler) was in the happy position of being able to tell questioners he didn’t know; but he agreed to let him see the Kirkpatrick interviews.57 For the same reason, Eden enjoined Simon to the utmost secrecy about the forthcoming ‘negotiation’, and pointed out that while he had to tell Hess that he came with the government’s approval, it was hoped he would not emphasise this, ‘since the man dreams of a change of government’.58

  Simon briefed himself on Kirkpatrick’s and Foley’s reports of their interviews with Hess. In addition Kirkpatrick sent him a short summary:

  The object of Hess’s journey is solely to convince responsible British leaders that, since there is no fundamental divergence between British and German aims, and since he is satisfied that Germany must sooner or later win this war, a peace of understanding should obviously be concluded now.

  The only basis on which he is at present prepared to impart information is to convince his listener that Germany will win. The best line of attack is, therefore, to invite him to explain clearly why Germany will win and to cross-examine him closely on those points in particular on which the military wish information …59

  He then suggested lines of enquiry Simon might pursue. First was ‘Russia: What is the use of our concluding a peace of understanding with Germany if Germany is going to sign up with Russia and bring Bolshevism into Europe?’ This suggests that Hess had not revealed Hitler’s plan to attack Russia either to Hamilton or Kirkpatrick; indeed Kirkpatrick’s reports of his interviews make this plain. Yet nothing in the documents on Hess’s mission can be taken at face value. Neither Hamilton nor Kirkpatrick had revealed the existence of the documents Hess undoubtedly brought with him – as the recently released MI5 papers prove – so their narratives cannot be taken as complete, and no conclusions can be drawn from them: either, as they im
ply, Hess did not reveal Hitler’s imminent attack on Russia, or he did reveal it but it was judged that at this critical juncture Lord Simon, a former appeaser, could not be trusted with the information.

  Kirkpatrick went on to list Italy, Spain and Portugal, Iraq and the German-occupied territories as subjects on which to probe Hess. This is strange, unless his memorandum was indeed a complete blind. Why had Kirkpatrick not questioned Hess on these areas of crucial importance himself? He had been forced to listen to an interminable harangue during his first interview, but could have used his subsequent visits to probe Hess on specifics. More than this, it seems scarcely credible that Hess had come to negotiate peace without giving any intimation – either in the documents he brought with him or ‘conversationally’ – of such significant areas of concern as the treatment of France and the Low Countries. Earlier German peace feelers had made it plain Hitler was only interested in eastern Europe and the Balkans and was prepared to evacuate occupied western Europe.60

  Given that it was crucial for Churchill to write Hess off as a lone madman and squash any hint of a credible peace plan, the fact that both Simon and the known wobbler R.A. Butler were allowed to see Kirkpatrick’s reports suggests that they were tailored to conceal much – as confirmed by their silence on the papers Hess brought with him.

  Just before his visit to Camp Z Simon received a report from Hess’s new medic, Dr Dicks. Noting his patient’s abnormal preoccupation with his health and suspicions of being drugged and persecuted, his fatalistic and superstitious attitude to life and desire to be a ‘saviour and bringer of peace’, Dicks diagnosed a paranoid personality. More perceptively, perhaps, since it confirms all German sources close to Hess, he deduced that ‘in Hitler Herr Hess had seen the perfect father authority who would make the bad world right. The moment he felt that Hitler was ruthless and destructive, he must have experienced great anxiety …’61 He could not admit this, Dicks continued, or even allow himself to know that he felt it; the Fuhrer was still perfect so he had to continue being loyal and, at least consciously, reject the bad qualities of his idol. Meanwhile he had begun instinctively to look for a new ‘pure object of veneration’, and found it in ‘the gallant Duke of Hamilton, or the chivalrous King of England’.

  * * *

  Simon arrived at Mytchett Place at 1.00 p.m. on 9 June, accompanied by Kirkpatrick as his ‘witness’. To preserve secrecy they carried passes countersigned by Cadogan in the names of ‘Dr Guthrie’ and ‘Dr Mackenzie’, although Hess (‘Jonathan’) had been told their real names. While they had lunch with Colonel Scott, Hess, who had dressed with care in his Luftwaffe uniform that morning, remained in his room with ‘Captain Barnes’, refusing any food in case of a last-minute attempt to poison him.

  At 2.00 p.m. MI5 officers arrived with Kurt Maass, the German ‘witness’ Hess had requested, and at 2.30 Simon, Kirkpatrick, a stenographer and Maass walked upstairs and through the grille on the landing into Hess’s bedroom, thence to his drawing room, where he and Barnes, who was to interpret, waited to receive them.62

  ‘Herr Reichsminister!’ Simon began after introductions, ‘I was informed that you had come here charged with a mission and that you wished to speak of it to someone who would be able to receive it with government authority. You know I am “Dr Guthrie” and therefore I come with the authority of the government and I shall be very willing to listen and discuss with you as far as seems good anything you would wish to state for the information of the government.’63

  ‘Ich bin ausserordentlich dankbar, dass “Dr Guthrie” herausgekommen ist ...’ Hess began.

  ‘He is extraordinarily grateful that Dr Guthrie has come out here,’ Barnes translated when he had finished. ‘He realises that his arrival here has not been understood by anyone – because it was such a very extraordinary step to take he can’t expect us to.’

  Hess then launched into an explanation of how the idea for his mission first came to him while with the Führer during the French campaign the previous year. The Führer had said to him he believed the war could perhaps be the cause of finally coming to the agreement with England for which he had striven all his political life; and when after the French campaign England had refused the Führer’s offer of peace, he (Hess) had become all the more determined to realise his plan.

  He paused for a long time after Barnes translated this, then spoke of the air war during which England had sustained heavier destruction and loss of life than Germany. In consequence he had the impression England could not give way without suffering great loss of prestige, and had said to himself he must realise his plan, because if he were over there in England the English could use his presence as grounds for negotiation. He was enabled to keep to his plan, he went on, by holding ever before his eyes endless rows of children’s coffins followed by weeping mothers. No doubt he was sincere; he had been greatly disturbed by the scenes he had witnessed during the French campaign. It is interesting, nonetheless, that one of several propaganda leaflets the RAF had dropped over Augsburg in the days immediately preceding his flight had shown a picture of a badly wounded dead child with the caption, ‘This is not your child, but one of the countless children caught by German air raids.’64

  From the humanitarian angle Hess passed to political history, treating Simon to the lengthy review of Anglo–German relations since the turn of the century that Kirkpatrick had suffered at his first interview, eventually reaching the lesson that British policy was always to form a coalition against the strongest Continental power and in the short or long term attack it. It would have been more accurate had he said ‘been attacked by it’, but he was, of course, relaying the Nazi view of history.

  Proceeding to the charge levelled against Germany of breaking treaties, he said he could match this with an endless series of broken treaties and violations of international law in British history: Germany had not treated any nations as England had treated the Boers, the Indians, the Irish; Germany had had no Amritsar [massacre], ‘nor have we created concentration camps for women and children as was the case with the Boers’.

  Simon apparently let this pass in silence. No doubt, like Kirkpatrick during his first interview, he felt argument would be useless. He did say later he hoped Hess understood that if he did not challenge his account it was not because he agreed, but because they must agree to differ; his real purpose in coming was to hear about his mission.

  ‘Essentially my flight was influenced,’ Hess responded, ‘the decision to make this flight was because those around the Führer are absolutely convinced that England’s position is hopeless – so much so we ask ourselves on what basis England can possibly continue the war.’ This led him into an account of Germany’s vast aircraft production and huge numbers of trained flying personnel. When Simon attempted to press him on actual numbers he replied that on military grounds he could not go into details, but it was hundreds of thousands. The air attack prepared for England was something frightful. ‘The previous air raids on England were only a small foreplay [‘Vorspiel’] in comparison to what will come,’ he went on, ‘and that is the reason – I should like to stress it – why I have come over here. And it is something unimaginably frightful, an air war on the scale this air war will take.

  ‘I consider myself, so to speak, duty-bound as a human being to appear here to warn you and make this proposal [‘Vorschlag’] that I am delivering.’

  Simon asked what his proposal was. He would happily explain, Hess replied, after he had made one more point: the U-boat war. However, he first returned to the air war and civilian morale under bombing, which led him to the assertion that in the last war the German collapse had come not from the fighting front but from the home front. ‘And this internal enemy we have basically eliminated [‘ausgeschaltet’].’

  ‘And this enemy behind the lines has been liquidated,’ Barnes translated.

  ‘Conversely love for the Führer has never been as great among the German Volk as
it is now,’ Hess concluded.

  Simon, who had been questioning him about aircraft numbers and civilian losses caused by British bombing, apparently allowed his remark about the liquidation of the enemy within to pass without comment. This seems strange: before the war Simon, who liked to explain that despite his name he was not a Jew, had taken Alfred Rosenberg to task about the treatment of Jews in Germany. Perhaps he was merely impatient at the time Hess was taking to get to the point; and he had not been asked to probe the situation of the Jews.

  Hess passed on to the extraordinarily large U-boat fleet under construction to attack British merchant shipping and so starve the country, as U-boats had almost succeeded in doing in 1917; and the idea that Britain could carry on the war from the Empire if the motherland had to capitulate for want of merchant tonnage was, he asserted, false. When Barnes had translated this Hess again brought up the concentration camps created by the British in the Boer War, saying they (Germany) would have equally little compunction, if the Empire had not capitulated, in putting pressure on the motherland.

  Kirkpatrick drew the conclusion: ‘Starving out the British Isles.’

  ‘That is a very hard position to take,’ Hess agreed, ‘But it is in England’s hands to make an end [to the war] under the most favourable conditions. I don’t know whether Dr Guthrie has already been informed of these conditions.’

  The question is: what conditions? Kirkpatrick had not reported Hess making any conditions apart from the general concept of Britain allowing Germany a free hand in Europe and handing back Germany’s former colonies, in return for Britain being allowed a free hand in her Empire. The terms ‘Europe’ and ‘Empire’ had not been defined, nor what was to happen to occupied western Europe or Poland, on whose behalf Britain had originally gone to war. So far as the open files are concerned there is nothing in the official record even hinting at conditions for a negotiated peace. Conversely, if the anonymous informant is to be believed, precisely formulated conditions had been laid down in the proposal Hess had brought with him. It is evident from Lord Simon’s line of questioning that if Hess had brought such a proposal, Simon had not seen it.65