Hess, Hitler and Churchill

by Peter Padfield

  Lord Simon again asked him to explain his mission.

  ‘I have learned the conditions under which Germany would be prepared to come to an understanding with England during a great number of conversations with the Führer. I must emphasise these conditions have been the same since the outbreak of war.’

  There followed a confused discussion of when he had made his first attempt to fly to Britain. After explaining the delays since he had first conceived his plan – in obtaining a plane, training on it and having special instruments fitted – he said he had attempted to execute it on 7 January. ‘For a number of reasons, weather conditions etc., and difficulties with the work on the plane, I was not able to carry it out.’

  Simon asked if he came with or without the Führer’s knowledge.

  ‘Without his knowledge,’ Hess replied in English without waiting for the translation, ‘Absolut!’ and laughed.

  Simon pressed him on why he had come at this particular time. The flight had been possible in practical terms from December on, he replied, but he had waited for suitable conditions; either it was bad weather in southern Germany or over the coast or in Scotland; earlier he had mentioned British victories in North Africa and against the Italians in Greece as additional reasons for putting off his flight.

  Kirkpatrick made a free translation for Simon, ending, ‘so what with the postponement because of the weather and postponement because of Wavell’s victories May really was –’

  Hess broke in, ‘On 10 May I made my first attempt.’66

  In an ‘Amended Version’ of the Simon interview prepared later for the legal officers at the Nuremberg war crimes trials this phrase is rendered as ‘On 10 January I made my first attempt’. Only a few minutes earlier in the interview Hess had told Simon he had made his first attempt on 7 January. And it will be recalled that his adjutant, Karl-Heinz Pintsch, gave 10 January 1941 as the date of his first attempt.67

  After parrying more probes by Simon on whether he had really been sent by the Führer, Hess handed Kirkpatrick two half-pages of handwritten notes he had prepared for the meeting.68 Kirkpatrick read them aloud in translation.

  ‘Basis for an understanding. One. In order to hinder, to prevent future wars between England and Germany there should be a definition of spheres of interest. Germany’s sphere of interest is Europe. England’s sphere of interest is her Empire –’

  Simon interrupted to ask if Russia was in Europe.

  ‘European Russia interests us obviously if we, for example, conclude a treaty with Russia, then England should not intervene in any way.’

  Simon asked again if Russia west of the Urals – ‘Moscow and all that part’ – was part of the European zone.

  ‘No, not at all.’

  After questions about Italy, which Hess confirmed was obviously part of Europe, they moved on to his further points, which hardly differed from what he had told Kirkpatrick at the first interview: return of German colonies, indemnity for war losses suffered by individuals, and, a new point, peace to be concluded simultaneously with Italy. Simon suggested there must be more than four conditions written on two half-sides of paper, and pressed him successively on what would happen to Holland, Norway and Greece. Hess replied that the Führer had not pronounced, and returned to his basic condition for an enduring peace: that England should interfere in Continental affairs as little as Germany should interfere in the Empire.

  They were able to get no further. Simon had concluded, as he was to put it in his subsequent report to Churchill, that Hess was ‘quite outside the inner circle which directs the war’,69 and wound up the interview.

  As they rose to leave Hess asked him if he could have a word in private. Once they were alone he began speaking very earnestly in English. His words were picked up by the concealed microphones and transcribed by a stenographer in the secret recording room.

  ‘I have come here, you know, and I appealed to the gallantry of the King of England and the gallantry of the British people here, and I thought that the King and the Duke of Hamilton would take me under their protection. I have been very well treated in the hospital and in the barracks [Tower] in London. I came here and I seemed also to be treated well. But not behind me. I have been asked things since I am here, if I am sensitive to noises. And I am …’70 He listed noises in the corridor outside his room and continually banging doors, motorcycles in the road and aeroplanes, which had prevented him from sleeping. Simon assured him that the noises were not intentional. They moved on to the question of substances added to his food and drink. Simon told him that whatever happened in Germany did not happen here; he was being childish, idiotic.

  ‘If you will not believe me I will go off my head and be dead,’ Hess said desperately, and after more dismissive remarks by Simon, ‘Then I don’t eat more in this house.’

  ‘That is very silly of you.’

  Hess’s English became more excited and ungrammatical as he tried to convince Simon that if he was found with his veins cut, the German people would be convinced that he had been killed by the Secret Service and it would be the definite end of understanding. And taking out photographs of his wife and son, he handed them to Simon. ‘Please save me for them. Save me for peace and save me for them.’

  ‘That is a nice portrait.’

  ‘And I have to ask you to go to your King and get me a leave by his order. It is only that what I have to ask him, an urgent ask for you.’

  Simon explained that matters like that were decided by the government, not the King, and urged him to behave like a soldier and a brave man. Hess, who had been a brave soldier in the first war and risked his life flying to Scotland, answered very reasonably, ‘I am a soldier and I have been a brave man, but I have my experiences …’

  He could make no impression, and after a further admonition to show courage, Simon left.

  Dr Dicks found his patient totally exhausted.71 Colonel Scott recorded that Hess seemed relieved: ‘was somewhat arrogant and truculent and strutted about the lawn after dinner with Major Foley.’72

  * * *

  A significant postscript to this interview is that the German ‘witness’, Kurt Maass, was afterwards, at the request of MI6, returned to the interrogation centre, Camp 020 at Ham Common, Richmond, and held in isolation, as was the other German internee Hess had originally asked for, Dr E. Semmelbauer, although he had not been present. An internal MI5 note states: ‘MAAS [sic] visited Camp Z [Mytchett Place] and has since, for special reasons, been kept apart from SEMMELBAUER. SEMMELBAUER has also been kept apart from other prisoners at Ham.’73

  From 20 July Maass and Semmelbauer were allowed to ‘associate’ twice daily for an hour at a time under observation by ‘special staff’, obviously German speakers, who reported what the two discussed, particularly in regard to what Hess had said to Lord Simon. On the 25th a report passed to Guy Liddell noted an assertion by Maass that when Simon had asked about the fate of the occupied countries, ‘Hess replied that on this matter he was unaware of the Führer’s views.’74

  What Hess had also said, according to the transcript of the Simon interview, was that the Führer had simply stated, ‘There are people who believe we will hold on to all that we have taken – I will certainly not be insane [‘wahnsinnig’]’,75 a Delphic utterance meaning presumably that Hitler did not mean to hold all the territory he had occupied.

  Semmelbauer in particular protested repeatedly against being held in isolation, and on 29 August MI5 was notified that both Germans could be returned to normal internment:

  It has been decided by the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary that they [Maass and Semmelbauer] may be returned to an internment camp, provided they sign a statement promising never to disclose their knowledge about Hess, and that they are made to understand that any leakage will lead to severe punishment …76

  That the decision had been taken at the very highest level is an indication of
the supreme importance attached to keeping all aspects of Hess’s mission from leaking. The Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary would not ordinarily have been consulted on individual internment issues. If it is accepted that the anonymous informant and other sources to be detailed were correct in stating that Hess’s proposals included the German evacuation of occupied western Europe, it can be inferred that the Prime Minister must have been reassured by the report on the internees’ belief that Hess was ‘unaware of the Führer’s views’ on this subject – in other words that the two Germans did not know Hess’s peace proposals included German evacuation of western Europe, and could not, therefore, leak this bombshell.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The story leaks

  SIMON DRAFTED a preliminary report on his interview the following day. He believed Hess’s assertions that he had come entirely on his own initiative: ‘he has not flown over on the orders or with the permission or previous knowledge of Hitler,’ he wrote on House of Lords paper. ‘It is a venture of his own.’1 However, unless passages have been excised from the transcript of the interview, Simon’s subsequent observations appear to have been derived mainly from his study of the previous reports:

  Hess arrived under the impression that the prospects of success of his mission were much greater than he now realises they are. He imagined that there was a strong peace party in this country and that he would have the opportunity of getting into touch with leading politicians in this country who wanted the war to end now. At first he asked constantly to see leaders of opposition and even imagined himself as likely to negotiate with a new government.2

  Nor did Simon’s further conclusions add anything new. He contended that Hess was ‘quite outside the inner circle which directs the war’, knew nothing of strategic plans, and had embarked on the mission to boost his own standing after a decline in his position and authority in the regime.

  Cadogan responded to Simon’s interview with a memo to Eden suggesting points for discussion:

  1) Is there any government reply or comment to be made on his [‘Jonathan’s’] proposals?

  2) If so I suppose it should be on the regular lines on which we have replied to similar peace ‘feelers’. That will put an end to our semi-official conversations with him …3

  Next he suggested how Hess might be exploited for propaganda, wondered whether Hess might be allowed to read The Times – ‘it might be of interest and even of value to watch the impact of the news upon him’ – and finally:

  5) Shall we take a favourable opportunity of giving him a drug that will encourage communications?

  This suggests that Hess’s suspicions about being drugged were up to that point without foundation – this undated memo clearly having been written shortly after Simon’s interview.

  On 14 June Churchill read the transcript of the interview, and dictated a memo to Eden:

  it seems to me to consist of the outpourings of a disordered mind. They are like a conversation with a defective child who has been guilty of murder or arson. Nevertheless I think it might be well to send them by air in a sure hand to President Roosevelt …4

  He added that he did not see any need for a public statement at present, and in the meantime ‘Jonathan’ should be kept in strict isolation where he was.

  Hess, meanwhile, had received no response to the ‘proposals’ he had put to Simon. This confirmation of his failure had pushed him into black despair. Colonel Scott recorded him being in a ‘difficult’ mood all that day, the 14th, pacing the terrace ‘like a caged lion, refusing to answer when spoken to’.5 He relented after dinner and played dart bowls in the garden with ‘Captain Barnes’, but in the early hours of the following morning, the 15th, he got out of bed and demanded to see Lieutenant Malone. Malone was on outside guard duty and Dr Dicks went to see him instead. Hess met him with such a torrent of abuse that Dicks became convinced, as he reported to Scott, that their prisoner was definitely insane.6 Scott’s adjutant eventually managed to calm him and get him back to bed.

  Later that morning Malone went up to see him. Hess rose and greeted him like a long-lost friend, then poured out his customary allegations about being poisoned to the instructions of a small clique around Churchill who wanted to prevent him from bringing about peace; his interview with Dr Guthrie had, he said, convinced him that the cabinet as a whole were anxious to negotiate. After detailing the symptoms he had experienced from substances added to his milk and other drinks, he finally produced two envelopes, one addressed to ‘Mein Führer’, one to his wife, Ilse, and asked Malone to despatch them through official channels as soon as he was dead. He assumed, he went on, that they would not be sent, so he gave Malone two duplicates, asking him to deliver them personally at the end of the war. Malone said he would have to report that he had duplicates, whereupon Hess begged him ‘in the interests of humanity’ to keep them secret. Malone insisted he could not do that and Hess eventually took all the envelopes back.7

  Malone could not have known, but these were suicide notes, dated 14 June:

  Mein Führer,

  My last greeting to you, who have been my inspiration for the past two decades. After the collapse of 1918 you made my life worthwhile again. Since then I have been allowed to commit myself to you and thereby to Germany. Scarcely ever has it been granted to men to serve a man and his ideas with so much success as [granted] to those under you.

  I thank you with my whole heart for all that you have given me and what you have been to me.

  I write these lines in the clear understanding that there remains for me no other way out – as hard as this end is for me.

  My family, including my elderly parents, I commend to your care.

  In you, my Führer, I greet our Gross-Deutschland which is drawing towards an undreamed of greatness.

  I die in the conviction that my last mission, even if it ends in death, will bear some fruit. Perhaps, despite my death or indeed precisely through my death, my flight will bring peace and understanding with England.

  Heil, mein Führer!

  Your devoted

  Rudolf Hess8

  He had added at the end of one copy a fragment of a poem by Goethe: ‘According to great, eternal laws must we all complete the circle of our existence.’9

  The letter addressed to Ilse was for all his family and friends:

  My dear all,

  Because I am forced to end my life, my last greeting to you all and thanks for all that you have been to me!

  The final step is very hard for me with thoughts of you, but I am left with no other way out.

  I committed myself fully to a great idea – fate has willed this end! I am convinced nonetheless that my mission will somehow or other bear fruit. Perhaps despite my death or precisely through it peace will result from my flight.10

  After the war Professor Karl Haushofer said of his former student and devoted friend that he had shown suicidal tendencies and a lack of balance as early as 1919, and had never been normal. ‘I recall having him sent to our family physician, Dr Bock, who discovered traces of infantilism.’11

  Besides the two farewell notes, Hess had written a detailed account of his flight addressed to his son – as mentioned earlier. He had begun it on 10 June, the day after his interview with Simon, and he concluded it sometime on the 15th with a personal reflection:

  Buz! Take note, there are higher forces controlling our fate – if we wish to give them a name we call them divine powers [‘göttliche kräfte’] – which intervene, at least when it is necessary, in a great event. I had to come to England and talk here of understanding and peace!

  Often we do not comprehend these hard decisions at once; later one will always recognise their significance.

  15.6.41 R.H.12

  On the same day he added a note to what appears to be an aide-memoire he had written for his meeting with Simon. It was headed ‘Extraordinary meeting, no pr
otocol provided, convened on the appearance of a Parlementär’13 (an emissary under a flag of truce). Five numbered paragraphs followed: ‘1. Understanding: wish of F[ührer] (Headquarters)’. The second point dealt with British scepticism, but ‘position alters if E[ngland] learns authentic conditions.’ The remaining points amounted to little more than overcoming mistrust in England by representing the history of the past years correctly, as of course he had attempted to do at great length. Now, having failed, he signed off: ‘To my son to remember the accomplishment of the life mission of his father.’

  Finally he wrote a brief note requesting that his uniform be delivered to the Duke of Hamilton for transmission to his family after the war.14

  * * *

  In the early hours of the following morning, the 16th, shortly before four, he emerged briefly from his bedroom in pyjamas and told the duty officer he couldn’t sleep and had taken some whisky. Returning to his room, he dressed quickly in full uniform and flying boots, then called out for the doctor. The duty officer outside ordered the Military Police warder to fetch Dicks, who arrived sleepily in pyjamas and dressing gown, holding a bottle of sleeping tablets. As the warder slid the bolts in the grille door and pulled it towards him to allow Dicks through, Hess burst out of his room, eyes staring wildly and hair dishevelled. Dicks thought he was going to be attacked. Instead Hess knocked him aside into the warder, rushed the short distance to the banister surrounding the stairwell and vaulted over.15

  He landed with an audible thud on the stone floor of the hall below, but his left leg had struck the lower banister on the way down, partially absorbing the momentum of his fall, and he lay fully conscious, but groaning in extreme pain, pointing to his left thigh and calling for morphia as Dicks, warders and the duty officer dashed down the stairs, joined soon by Colonel Scott, the ‘companions’ and others woken by the commotion. Blankets, pillows and tea were brought for him while Foley telephoned Menzies in London and obtained permission for a surgeon from the military hospital nearby to be called in. Arriving almost an hour later, the surgeon diagnosed an uncomplicated fracture of the upper femur with no abdominal injury. Dicks recorded Hess’s reaction as ‘chagrin at having his beautiful breeches cut open with scissors’ and ‘docile, childlike trust in and co-operation with the surgeon’.16 His leg was strapped into a temporary splint and he was carried back up the stairs to his bedroom and given an injection of morphia. Dicks had been reluctant to administer one earlier in case it masked signs of internal injury.