The Secret of Spandau

by Peter Lovesey

  ‘Most of these people are, unfortunately,’ answered Cedric.

  Major Donald of the Royal Observer Corps followed, describing his interview the same night with the prisoner in the Home Guard hut at Busby. At that stage, he explained, nobody knew the identity of the captured pilot. The major had found him in a beautiful rig of light blue and looking slightly fed-up, sitting surrounded by police and Home Guards. At the sight of another service uniform, the man had got to his feet and bowed, but his leg was injured and he had soon been forced to resume his seat. He was refusing to speak any English, so Major Donald, who was a speaker of German, had asked him the questions the others had been trying to put.

  The man had given his name as Hauptmann Alfred Horn and said that he had a secret message to deliver urgently to the Duke of Hamilton. When translated into English, this had created loud amusement among his captors. The prisoner, angered, had shown Major Donald his map, with Dungavel House marked with a red circle.

  His face seemed familiar, the major went on, so I asked him where he had come from, and he said near Munich. I remarked on the excellence of the Lowenbrau in the Munich Beer Cellar, and he looked as disapproving as a maiden aunt. He was a teetotaller, you see. Now I had heard of two Germans who were teetotallers. One was Hitler and the other was Hess. I asked him to sign his name against the Me 110 in my pack of aircraft identification cards, and he signed Alfred Horn. I said I was surprised that he had an Anglo-Saxon name instead of a good German one. He insisted that ‘Alfred’ was German, and I said, ‘Ich Denke nicht’ – the nearest I could get to ‘Oh, yeah?’ I told him, ‘I will see that the Duke is informed of your request, and I will also tell the Duke that your true name is Rudolf Hess.’ He jumped about fifteen inches.

  In the event, the programme’s narrator explained over a still picture of the Duke of Hamilton, the Major’s theory wasn’t conveyed to the Duke, who drove to Maryhill Barracks next morning, apparently unaware that the prisoner would identify himself as the Deputy Führer.

  Dick cut in with a query: ‘Isn’t there an interview with the Duke?’

  ‘Unfortunately, no,’ responded Cedric, pressing the pause button on the remote control.

  ‘He’s dead now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was he a friend of Hess?’

  ‘No. They’d never met before Hess arrived.’

  Dick frowned. ‘That’s certain?’

  ‘Absolutely. The Duke brought a successful libel action against some people who made precisely that allegation in a pamphlet. Leading members of the British Communist Party. They were obliged to publish a statement in The Times unreservedly accepting the Duke’s assurance that he had no sympathy with the Nazis or the German Government and that he had never met Hess, nor even received a letter from him.’

  ‘There must have been some reason why Hess asked to see him,’ ventured Jane.

  ‘We’re coming to that,’ said Cedric in a tone that said they would have come to it sooner without the interruption. He started the video again.

  The programme turned to Hess’s life prior to the flight to Britain. His birth in Egypt in 1894, the son of a prosperous German wholesale merchant. Boarding-school in Germany and then business school in Switzerland, until the First World War. Distinguished service on the Western Front and in the Rumanian campaign. Towards the end of the war, the Imperial Flying Corps. A studio picture showed him in pilot’s uniform, a young man of striking good looks, with the square facial structure and piercing eyes familiar in later shots, yet without the crazed stare of the Nuremberg picture.

  Germany’s defeat and the humiliating terms of Versailles were documented with newsreel footage of the generals and politicians moving jerkily in and out of meetings. Hess, along with many of his generation, had enlisted in the Freikorps, a right-wing volunteer movement, and he was wounded fighting on the streets of Munich. In 1920, he joined a new extreme right-wing party who wore swastika armbands and were led by Adolf Hitler.

  Predictably, Hitler was presented as one of the two major influences on Hess’s political life. The other was a professor at Munich University, where Hess had enrolled in the same year. Karl Haushofer, a portly, moustached figure, had founded the new subject of Geopolitics.

  More stills from the archives showed Hitler leading the Nazis in Munich in the twenties, attempting the unsuccessful Beer-Cellar Putsch of 1923 and serving his prison sentence in the relative comfort of Landsberg Castle, where there were tablecloths and freshly-cut flowers. Hess had managed to escape after the Putsch and hide in the Haushofer home for several weeks, but shrewdly decided to give himself up and join his leader in Landsberg. There, he had strengthened the friendship by acting as secretary and typist, actually typing much of Mein Kampf as Hitler dictated it.

  At this point in the programme, an Oxford history don was brought on to show how Professor Haushofer’s geopolitics, notably his theory of Lebensraum, had influenced Hitler and Mein Kampf.

  Jane’s attention shifted from the screen to her fellow-investigators. Dick sat forward in total concentration, mentally plugged in like a computer terminal. He wouldn’t miss a fact. Unlike Red, who had just anticipated her glance by sliding his eyes in her direction, running them slowly over her legs and upwards, and grinning lewdly until she stared him out.

  She returned to the programme, by now tracing Hess’s blind loyalty to the man he called Mein Führer. Hess, too, acquired new titles, first as Hitler’s adjutant, then, in 1933, his deputy, the Stellvertreter.

  The Nazi rise to power was illustrated by familiar footage of the Nuremberg rallies, with Hess always on the rostrum first, to raise the mass to a crescendo of chanting, his arm rigidly extended in the Nazi salute, and exultation gleaming in his eyes as he announced the Führer.

  Away from the public stage, Hess was shown taking increasing responsibilities in government: for schools, universities and religious societies. He was seen with Hitler and Frick signing the Nuremberg laws, which set in motion the persecution of the Jewish race and led to the 1938 pogrom and, ultimately, the death camps. He was shown at the head of the Ausland organizations that strengthened ties with the twenty million Germans living abroad and, under cover of Ausland, the Nazi Fifth Columns.

  Then the war, and, surprisingly, no major role for Hess. In 1938, Hitler had nominated a second Deputy, Hermann Göring. Hess, it was Delphically announced, was still the Führer’s Deputy in his absence, but Göring was the Deputy in Berlin. As Head of the Luftwaffe, Göring was involved in the conduct of the war, while Hess was on the sidelines, watching others – the Generals, von Ribbentrop, even Martin Bormann – exert more influence on events.

  Hess, the commentary went on to suggest, began to look for a way of re-establishing himself.

  Suddenly the screen went blank.

  ‘They get into speculation after this,’ Cedric explained, putting the remote control unit aside. ‘Hess is shown making the flight to England in a crazy one-man bid to do a peace deal.’

  ‘Crazy in the sense of insane?’ said Jane.

  ‘Disturbed, anyway. A very dubious proposition,’ added Cedric.

  ‘That’s the version I always took as gospel,’ admitted Dick.

  ‘You’re in the majority, then.’

  Red was giving Cedric an interested look. ‘You don’t go along with the theory that he was out of his mind? Have you seen the film they took at the Nuremberg Trials?’

  ‘It’s used in the programme.’

  ‘If ever a guy looked bananas, it was Hess.’

  ‘Only that was 1946, five years after the time we’re talking about,’ Cedric pointed out. ‘Let’s not leap ahead. Do you know what happened after he was arrested in Scotland?’

  ‘He spent the rest of the war in Britain as a prisoner, didn’t he?’ said Jane.

  ‘Right. In 1945, he was flown to Nuremberg to join the other Nazis on trial.’

  ‘When did he start the sentence in Spandau?’

  ‘18 July 1947, together with six others.
’

  ‘… who all got out years ago,’ Dick added.

  ‘True. He’s been alone in Spandau since 1966. The others either served their time, like Albert Speer, or were released on medical grounds. Of the three sentenced to life imprisonment, Admiral Raeder was released in 1955 and Walther Funk in 1957. Hess is still waiting.’

  Jane was trying to keep her emotions out of this, but she couldn’t suppress an outraged sigh. ‘If there were medical grounds for the others, surely when a man gets to the age of ninety …’

  ‘… his health ain’t so bad,’ murmured Red.

  ‘Can’t you contribute anything but cheap asides?’ Jane rapped back without even looking his way. ‘He ought to be released on humanitarian grounds. That old man has been a prisoner since before you and I were born. He was locked up in England when the worst of the Nazi atrocities took place. And let’s not forget the reason why he flew here.’

  ‘Which was?’ Cedric asked her, like a schoolmaster drawing out facts.

  Jane gave an exasperated sigh. ‘To stop the bloody war. He was on a mission of peace, wasn’t he?’

  ‘That’s not disputed by anyone now,’ Cedric agreed. ‘In Britain in 1941, it was kept secret for fear of undermining morale, which, of course, is a mortal sin in time of war. The Government couldn’t deny that Hess had landed and was in their custody, because the story had broken in a Scottish daily, but they said nothing about the peace mission.’

  ‘What did the Nazis say about it?’ asked Dick, professional in his pursuit of the story.

  ‘They waited twenty-four hours, and when there was no news from Britain they issued a statement that Hess had taken a plane and was missing, adding that he had become mentally unstable.’

  ‘So the stories of his madness were Nazi propaganda?’

  ‘Which Britain didn’t choose to deny,’ added Cedric.

  Red suddenly asked, ‘What did Fleet Street make of all this? It was one hell of a story.’

  ‘It was also wartime,’ Cedric explained. ‘Everything was censored. The fact of his coming filled the headlines when it was official, and after that the story was spiked for as long as the war lasted. We’ve had to piece it together from what people have said and written since. Millions of words. Every second chap you meet has a Hess story.’

  ‘So hasn’t it all been said?’ Jane suggested.

  ‘Would I have brought you here from Washington if it had?’ Cedric picked up an ashtray and pressed his cigar-butt into it. Then he placed it on the table and sat back with his hands locked under his chin in the pose he habitually adopted in crucial editorial meetings. ‘Let’s address ourselves to the crux of this matter: why is Rudolf Hess still a prisoner in Spandau forty-three years after his flight to Britain? The stock response in the West is to blame the Russians, but is it quite so simple as that? You heard Wolf Rüdiger Hess suggest otherwise.’

  ‘OK, let’s have it,’ Dick turned to Red. ‘You were there. What was your impression? Does Hess’s son know something the rest of the world doesn’t?’

  Red shifted his position on the window-seat and took out a cigarette. He wasn’t so comfortable, Jane observed, when questions were put directly to him. ‘You mean has his old man told him something? Not a chance. Every meeting they have is monitored by all four commandants.’

  ‘Someone else could have given him information,’ Dick persisted. ‘There are plenty of people who would like to see Hess given some mercy.’

  ‘Plenty,’ Red conceded. ‘Human rights campaigners, churchmen, lawyers, people who actually participated in the Nuremberg Trials, All Party Committees of the House of Commons, successive German Chancellors – but what happens? Niet. The Russians won’t agree. They have twenty million war dead to stiffen their resolve. Besides which, they like to keep their toehold in the West. The first thing they do when their tour of duty begins in Spandau is to erect their telecommunications antennae on the roof of the administration block. They even insisted on mounting a full guard – every watchtower – when Hess was out of the place, in hospital.’

  Cedric had listened patiently to this exchange. Now he commented, ‘All this is undeniable, but it doesn’t tell us where the Western governments really stand on this issue. In 1970, the possibility was raised of saying to hell with the Russians, let’s release Hess when it’s our turn to guard him. The answer of Lord Chalfont, then Minister of State at the Foreign Office, was that the British Government wouldn’t contemplate setting Hess at liberty without Russian consent because it would mean breaking solemn international obligations.’

  ‘We break them when it suits us,’ commented Red.

  ‘If the will was there, we could release him tomorrow,’ said Cedric. ‘Does anyone really believe it would be the start of World War Three?’

  There was silence as Cedric’s remark sank in. He took another cigar from his pocket and lit it ostentatiously, taking stock of the effect of what he had said so far.

  Dick Garrick cleared his throat. ‘I’m not entirely clear about this, Cedric. Are you implying that the British have their own reason for wanting to keep Hess in Spandau?’

  ‘Yes.’ Cedric blew smoke at the ceiling.

  ‘Presumably you have some evidence?’

  Cedric nodded.

  ‘But not enough to print?’

  Cedric took time to watch the smoke disperse. ‘I would prefer to have more.’ He reached for one of the books on the table in front of him. ‘This curious little volume is Exhibit One. The Case of Rudolf Hess: A Problem in Diagnosis and Forensic Psychiatry. It was published just after the war, in 1947. The editor was Brigadier J.R. Rees, the British Army’s chief psychiatrist, and there were seven other contributors, all doctors and psychiatrists who attended Hess during his detention in Britain. The purpose of the book –’ Cedric opened it and found the quote he wanted – ‘is to show to as wide a public as possible the considerable abnormality of a man whose influence on world history has been marked.’ He turned to another page. ‘The Brigadier’s conclusion is that: Hess is a man of unstable mentality and has almost certainly been like that since adolescence. In technical language I should, on my present acquaintanceship, diagnose him as a psychopathic personality of the schizophrenic type.’

  Red gave a long, low whistle.

  Cedric continued, ‘The book gives numerous instances of Hess’s strange behaviour, persistent fantasies that he was being drugged or poisoned, the frequent rejection of food, periodic loss of memory and two attempts at suicide.’

  ‘Suicide? Genuine attempts?’ asked Dick.

  ‘What did he do?’ asked Jane.

  ‘The first incident was at Mytchett Place, near Aldershot, where he was held for a year. It happened within a month of his arrival in Britain. He called the doctor in the night, rushed him as he came in and threw himself over the banisters. He broke a leg. The second occasion was in 1945, at Maindiff Place, near Abergavenny, where he spent the rest of the war. He managed to obtain a bread-knife and stabbed himself in the chest, but it was not a deep wound. There must be doubts whether either was a genuine attempt at suicide.’

  ‘So was he really off his head?’ asked Red.

  ‘That’s the message in the book.’ Cedric’s flat response was like a gauntlet thrown down.

  There was a pause before Dick said tentatively, ‘But there’s evidence to the contrary?’

  Cedric nodded. ‘From some pretty impressive sources. Winston Churchill was no psychiatrist, I admit, but as Prime Minister he was presumably getting reliable information. In a statement he prepared for the House of Commons – it was never read, but it’s in the Public Record Office – he wrote –’ Cedric reached for a clipboard – ‘He is reported to be perfectly sane and apart from the injury to his ankle in good health. That was soon after Hess arrived, of course. Then four months later, in September 1941, Churchill asked Lord Beaverbrook to visit Hess at Mytchett Place and find out what he could.’

  ‘Beaverbrook, the newspaper baron?’ asked Jane.

&
nbsp; ‘He was in the War Cabinet, and as close to Churchill as anyone,’ Cedric threw out tersely, wanting to move on to other things. ‘Let me tell you about Mytchett Place. It was an MI5 establishment, the headquarters of the Field Security Police. With MI5 in charge, Beaverbrook’s visit was a bizarre occasion. They used assumed names for the benefit of the concealed shorthand-typist taking down the conversation. Beaverbrook called himself Dr Livingstone and Hess was given the name Jonathan. Hess told his story and outlined his peace plan and Beaverbrook went back to report to Churchill. The PM asked, “Is he mad?” and the Beaver answered, “Certainly not. Hess talks quite sanely and rationally. He may have unusual ideas on health matters, but he is not mad.”’

  ‘So what was going on?’ asked Dick.

  ‘In Mytchett Place? Plenty.’

  To ease them over another of Cedric’s pregnant pauses, Red said, ‘We’re all ears.’

  Cedric gave a rare smile. ‘So were MI5. There were hidden microphones under the floor and in the chimney of Hess’s quarters. In the thirteen months he was there, he underwent a series of interrogations and psychiatric examinations. He had to eat his meals in the company of German-speaking intelligence officers. He is reported to have shown symptoms of paranoia, but who wouldn’t have? His complaints that his food was drugged may have seemed outrageous to fair-minded British folk in the 1940s, but knowing as much as we now know about the methods of the security services, can we be sure he was mistaken?’ Cedric leaned forward in his chair. ‘And can we say with any certainty that his lapses of memory were not induced?’

  Jane had followed the trend of Cedric’s argument with growing unease. She sensed that she was being led into making assumptions that were inimical to her deeply-held convictions. She dug in her heels. ‘Induced? But why?’

  ‘Because there may have been things our people wanted to wipe out of his memory.’

  Jane frowned. ‘Cedric, that’s highly speculative.’

  Cedric picked up the Rees book again and opened it at the front. ‘Then I think you’ll be interested in the statement at the front of the Brigadier’s book. Apparently, Hess was asked to give his consent to publication, and he wrote a kind of foreword.’