The Hitler–Hess Deception. Martin Allen

were headed by Lord Halifax and Neville Chamberlain reveals the seriousness with which they were regarded by the British side, for Chamberlain was still keen to restore European peace. The Prime Minister was motivated by the desire to restore his reputation, but wanted to keep his failure hidden if he did not.

      Although Halifax and Chamberlain had thought they could still negotiate an end to the conflict, the manner of the Venlo snatch by the SD finally impressed upon London that the Nazis were beyond the pale. How could Britain engage in meaningful peace negotiations with the Nazis when they reacted to an internal security problem by kidnapping peace negotiators?

      When Winston Churchill discovered the truth behind the incident shortly after Stevens and Payne-Best’s kidnapping, his fury knew no bounds. Not only had Halifax and Chamberlain secretly engaged in a dangerous peace initiative, they had done so behind the back of the Cabinet. In Churchill’s eyes the appeasement of Nazism had led to the obliteration of the Czech state, the invasion of Poland, and to Britain and France facing a war just as they had in 1914. Yet Chamberlain had apparently not learned the lessons of appeasement, and had attempted mediation again. This was bad enough, but what Churchill also realised – which had apparently escaped Chamberlain – was that Chamberlain had unwittingly placed the alliance itself in dire peril. If the Germans were to leak details of the negotiations to the French, it would utterly shatter France’s confidence in Britain’s resolve to stand firm, ensuring victory to the Germans.

      That German Intelligence did not leak the Venlo details to the French, however, is a clear indication that they too had much to hide, for it was no part of Hitler’s plans for the German Volk to hear that top Nazis were attempting secretly to negotiate peace with Britain until it was a done deal.

      The Venlo Incident was not a clear-cut peace negotiation, for much double-dealing occurred behind the scenes, primarily organised by those masters of Machiavellian deceit, Reinhard Heydrich and Heinrich Himmler. To call it instead an ‘SS peace move’ might be more accurate. But Venlo was important because it involved Britons and Germans at the highest level; it also set in motion a chain of events that would give the first seeds of an idea to British Intelligence that they might conduct a similar ‘sting’ of their own.

      It is entirely possible that the Stevens/Payne-Best–Morz operation pre-October 1939 was originally an SD ‘sting’ aimed at crippling British Intelligence’s network in western Europe, but Heydrich’s participation in the operation post-Dahlerus indicates that a change in priorities had taken place. Moreover, Schellenberg’s reports on the affair were passed through Heydrich directly to Himmler.

      On the British side, much of the remaining evidence suggests that the subsequent writing-off of Venlo as a ‘sting’ was primarily intended to protect Chamberlain from being caught holding secret peace talks with the Germans at the same time that he was condemning Nazi expansionism – a position he would have found hard to explain not only to Parliament, but to the Poles and the French. Intriguingly, in the Foreign Office’s ‘President Roosevelt’s Eyes Only’ communication of June 1941, Sir Alexander Cadogan would confidentially remark to Britain’s Ambassador in Washington that ‘the only important omission from our memorandum is the story of the Venlo incident in November 1939’.²⁹ Thus, within Whitehall, Venlo was classified as amongst the ‘peaceable attempts’, and not as an intelligence operation that went disastrously wrong.

      Given what is known about Hitler’s desperation to end the war with Britain, it is possible that had the SS found a possible route to peace, Himmler would have ordered Heydrich to explore it, for he too was well aware of the extremely dangerous situation Germany was falling into. In 1942 Count Ciano would record that ‘Himmler, who now feels the real pulse of the country, wants a compromise peace’,³⁰ for his ‘plans for expansion into Russia were based on his hopes of coming to an understanding with the West’.³¹ Indeed, when the tide of war had finally turned inexorably against Germany in 1944, Himmler would earnestly engage in his own secret peace negotiations, this time without Hitler’s knowledge, and would attempt to use Albrecht Haushofer to do this. It is therefore likely that Himmler was inclined to attempt to restore peace with Britain in 1939, at a time when it would have secured both the fortunes of the Reich and his own position at the top of the Nazi hierarchy.

      The collapse of the Venlo/SS peace attempt unnerved Hitler, for he undoubtedly did believe that the Bürgerbräukeller attempt on his life had been connected in some way to the negotiations taking place in Holland. But unbeknownst to Himmler, Heydrich or anyone else in the SS, Hitler was already pursuing yet another entirely private avenue to peace – his own short-cut to European domination. Hitler was a great believer in auguries, mysticism, and what he liked to call his ‘destiny’. It is therefore little wonder that he took his salvation from the Bürgerbräukeller bombing very seriously indeed, and was sure fate had played a hand in saving him from being blown to bits. The reason Hitler had left the Bürgerbräukeller early was to travel back to Berlin to meet another emissary. Only this emissary wasn’t offering peace mediation, but a victory that would enable him to dictate peace terms to a defeated foe.

      The important peaceable attempts (i.e. those that could be directly connected to Hitler’s interests) between 1939 and 1941 fall into a clearly discernible pattern. As soon as one of them began to falter or fail, so keen was Hitler to have peace in the west that another was instantly begun through some other medium – be it by banker, businessman, diplomat or royal – in an attempt to keep the dialogue going.

      There were, however, two exceptions to this rule.

      The first occurred from mid-November 1939 to July 1940, directly following the failure of Venlo. It was a time when, through a French-American named Charles Bedaux, and later through Baron Oswald von Hoyningen-Huene, Germany’s Ambassador in Lisbon, Adolf Hitler attempted to open a line of communication to the former King Edward VIII, now the Duke of Windsor, whom he mistakenly believed was still an influential personality in British politics.

      The other period of inactivity lasted from the second half of 1940 until mid-1941. At this time Hitler believed that the best opportunity for peace was through the efforts of Albrecht Haushofer and Rudolf Hess, whose high-level negotiations were aimed at permanently removing Britain from the war.

      What this reveals is that Hitler repeatedly engaged in secret and complex efforts to negotiate his way out of a war in the west he did not want, except when he believed he had found an inside track to undermining the Allies’ (i.e. Britain’s) resolve and ability to continue the conflict – a carrot-and-stick approach to persuade or force Britain to the negotiating table. Two attempts to proffer the carrot – Dahlerus and Venlo – had failed, so now Hitler determined to use the stick.

      Hitler’s first attempt to force Britain to the table involved a French-American businessman named Charles Bedaux, a close friend of the Duke of Windsor, who (according to documents in British, German and American archives) offered to act as an intermediary carrying messages between Germany and the former King Edward VIII.³²

      Charles Bedaux was no novice in the world of espionage. He had been a spy for Germany in the United States during the First World War,³³ and had, in boom-time America of the 1920s, prospered to become a multi-millionaire. By the 1930s he was back in Europe, where his home, the Château de Candi, swiftly became known as a hotbed of Nazi intrigue and plotting.³⁴ During the 1930s Bedaux had played a key role in the reorganisation of German industry which enabled Hitler’s rearmament programme to take place. He thus moved in very high Nazi circles indeed, knew Hitler personally, and even had a villa at Berchtesgaden within sight of the Führer’s Berghof.³⁵

      In 1937 Bedaux had hosted the wedding of the abdicated King Edward VIII to the American divorcee Wallis Simpson, at the Château de Candi. Having firmly insinuated himself into the Windsors’ lives, he swiftly became responsible for their tour of Nazi Germany, which although well received in Germany, was a public-relations disaster in Britain, where Edward had hoped to restore his standing. Thereafter the relationship had cooled, but in October 1939 Bedaux reported exciting news to Hitler concerning the Duke of Windsor, with whom he was back on friendly terms.

      What had occurred was that in late September 1939, Reichsleiter Alfred Rosenberg, head of the