The Hitler–Hess Deception. Martin Allen

Maps

       Greater Germany as conceived by Karl Haushofer

       Greater Germany and the empire in the east as perceived by the Nazis

       The route of Hess’s Me-110, 10 May 1941

Dedication

      For Jeanie, without whose invaluable assistance this book would not have been written

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

List of Maps

Dedication

Preface

Prologue

1 An Unlikely Triumvirate

2 Peaceable Attempts

       3 Flag-Waving

       4 Negotiation

       5 A Tense Spring

       6 Someone is Expected

       7 An Emissary Comes

       8 A Fatal Decision

       Epilogue

       Postscript

       Source Notes

       Bibliography

       Index

       Footnotes

       Acknowledgements

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

Preface

      One wet Friday morning in the spring of 2000, I found myself in the Dorset market town of Dorchester to give a radio interview about a book I had written on the politico-diplomatic events of 1939–40, called Hidden Agenda.

      As I sat in the tiny broadcast studio staring at the microphone, my head clamped within a hefty pair of headphones, I little realised that within the next twenty minutes a question asked by a DJ tucked away in a BBC broadcast studio in Southampton would occupy my life for the next two years, cause me to collect many thousands of documents from as far afield as Germany, Japan, the United States and Russia, or travel many thousands of miles to interview experts and witnesses from as far afield as a nursing home in Glasgow, to a mansion in Bavaria, an apartment in Stockholm, and a townhouse on the outskirts of Washington DC.

      I took a sip of water from a plastic cup, blissfully unaware that a mysterious element of the Second World War would soon prove so magnetic to my curiosity that before the end of the week I would begin a hunt for documents and people who might help me solve a mysterious affair that had taken place over sixty years ago …

      Suddenly the headphones cracked into life and a disembodied voice greeted me jovially: ‘Hello. Are you there, Mr Allen?’

      After a brief acknowledgement from me, the voice pronounced ‘Great! I’m cutting you in now …’ and with that music that was being broadcast to the south of England burst loudly from the headphones for a few brief seconds, before almost immediately beginning to tail away again.

      ‘Wasn’t that nice, just the sort of thing for a wet summer’s day,’ the DJ announced to his audience. ‘Now, as I mentioned earlier, I’ve been joined this morning by Martin Allen, who has just written a book on the Duke of Windsor which throws new light on events at the start of the Second World War. Hello Martin …’

      And so the interview got under way, with much banter from the distant DJ, and some searching questions as well for he had evidently read the book and wanted the most out of the interview.

      About halfway through the interview, whilst we were discussing the Duke of Windsor’s time in Lisbon, where surreptitious communication had begun between the German government and Britain’s former King at loose on a continent aflame with war, the DJ pointedly asked: ‘Given that the Duke of Windsor knew Hess, is it correct to say he was connected to Hess’s flight to Britain in May 1941?’

      I paused, my immediate inclination was to answer yes, but in the nanosecond between the DJ asking his question and my considering the answer, I suddenly realised, No, it can’t be connected to Windsor. Hess’s flight to Britain was nearly a year later, and the Duke of Windsor had been in the Bahamas for much of that time. What then was the answer? I sidestepped the question, declaring that the Hess problem would not easily be solved until all the documents on the matter were released, and the interview duly progressed in another direction.

      I do not really remember the drive home that day, for my mind was back sixty years in those dreadful dangerous days of 1940–41, when Britain had stood alone and fought desperately for her very survival. Ignoring the heavy traffic and pouring rain, I found myself mentally sifting through the considerable Foreign Office and Intelligence evidence I had accumulated to write my last book, sure that a clue to what took place was there somewhere, yet positive it would not be the full answer.

      Rudolf Hess’s flight to Britain had taken place on the night of Saturday 10 May 1941, 10 months after the Duke of Windsor had departed Portugal aboard the SS Excalibur bound for the Bahamas where he was to become the colony’s new Governor. That the Windsors did not want to go, considered the Bahamas little more than a gilded cage with golden sands, a ‘St Helena of 1940’ as Wallis called it, was without a doubt. However, I also knew that despite still feeling himself deserving of some greater task in life, the Duke of Windsor had lost his importance to the Germans by then and become superfluous to their needs. In addition, with the Duke of Windsor’s departure from war-torn Europe, Ribbentrop’s potential as a man capable of delivering