I. The Hess Mess
II. Hess the Hermetic
III. Putschin' on the Ritz
IV. A Scottish Excursion
V. A Plea for Peace
VI. The Lore of the Lure
VII. Cooperating Coops
VIII. Capturing a Captain
IX. Conspiracies and Contingencies
X. Prisoner 007
XI. The Forgotten Flight
XII. Deputy Dopplegänger
XIII. To Make a Man
XIV: An Astonishing Assassination
XV: A Secret So Sinister
XVI: An Antarctic Epilogue
The Hess Mess
The choice of the word "mess" to describe this opera is much more than just a clever rhyme. What the Hess Mess represents is undoubtedly akin to the proverbial Rabbit Hole; the Chapel Perilous of Robert Anton Wilson.
The mess is riddled with so many twists, turns and contradictions that what ultimately emerges is the grandest conspiracy at not only the highest levels of the British government, but one that includes multiple superpowers and their various intelligence agencies.
In addition, something about the secret at the heart of the Hess Mess is so significant that it still warrants concealing from the public after more than three quarters of a century.
What could be so unacceptable to Britain, or the Allies, in the early 21st century? What does the Rudolf Hess story conceal that would in some way shock even today's cynical world?
The best place to start the Hess Mess is at the end, and a messy end for Hess it was.
On August 17, 1987, Rudolf Walter Richard Hess, once Adolf Hitler's Deputy Führer, was pronounced dead at a British Military Hospital in Berlin.
Having spent the last 41 years of his life in prison, the 93-year-old inmate had reportedly chosen to end his own life, hanging himself from a window latch with an electrical cord.
Only Hess among all the Nazis incarcerated after World War II was made to serve out his entire life sentence, and this includes other individuals of comparable rank, such as the Reich's Armaments Minister Albert Speer, the two chiefs of the German Kriegsmarine, Grand Admirals Erich Raeder and Karl Dönitz, Reichsbank President Walther Funk, diplomat Konstantin von Neurath, and Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach.
These were some of the men that kept the gigantic war machine of the Third Reich smoothly running and functioning as a military power right up to the end of the war, and in Dönitz's case, had nearly brought Britain to its knees in the unrelenting U-boat warfare.
Indeed, of all the "designated successors" to Hitler, it was Dönitz that finally succeeded Hitler as the legal head of state and government after the latter's problematical "suicide" in the Berlin Führerbunker.
All of these men were released, including Raeder and Funk, even though both had received life sentences. Although their premature release was for "health and humanitarian" reasons, no explanation was ever offered for why Hess remained for another 21 years, despite suffering considerable health problems, which began in earnest after a perforated ulcer in 1969.
To make matters even more strange, an entire prison facility, known as Spandau Prison, was maintained just to house Hess! Built in 1876, Spandau Prison had a single occupant from the years 1966-1987: Rudolf Hess.
It's an absurd picture: the Allied powers--France, Great Britain, the USA, and the Soviet Union--all contributed to the maintenance and upkeep of the entire Spandau Prison, changing their military guards at regular monthly intervals, just to guard this one man.
The guard rotation shifted on a monthly basis, with the French guards during the months of February, June, and October; British guards in January, May, and September; American guards in April, August, and December; and Soviet guards in March, July, and November.
Why did Hess have to be guarded at all costs and have his access to the outside world strictly, and even cruelly, controlled?
Why was it necessary to maintain an entire prison, and the military guards and medical staffs of four world powers, just to keep watch over one individual who, by the end of his life, was a frail old man, and a threat to no one?
What secrets did he know that the Four Powers wanted to prevent others from knowing? Did they themselves even know what those secrets were, or did they only suspect? Or were they trying to break him and learn those secrets?
Or did Hess not know anything at all?
Was the man they were guarding even really Rudolf Hess?
Was "Spandau Hess" someone else, a double, substituted at some point in the drama? Was that the real reason for the Spandau Ballet of elaborate changings of the guard and maintaining an entire prison for just one man, and refusing to let him out, lest the substitution--the real secret--be discovered?
Why, then, the reference to colonies? The direct reference to the infamous Kristallnacht may give us a clue:
Hess, while a firm believer in international Jewish-Zionist plots, did offer protection to the Haushofers, as Frau Haushofer was half Jewish.
The future Duke of Hamilton may therefore have been appealing directly to parties in Germany that were uncomfortable with the direction Hitler's Reich was taking.
The same day that the future Duke of Hamilton's "peace message" was published in the Times, the German BBC service broadcast the letter.
This letter may ultimately be one of the most crucial elements of the entire Hess Mess, as it becomes clear that either Hess "undertook his mission with the intention of dissembling to the British, concluding a peace, and keeping Hitler in power; or he undertook his mission with the intention of participating in the overthrow of Hitler's government, in order to procure a peace with Britain."
Despite Hess's loyalty towards Hitler, this possibility is strengthened by the curious actions of Göring on the night of Hess's flight, as well as Göring's own history of conducting peace negotiations with the British. Göring was Hitler's successor in offices of state, while Hess was his designated representative and successor in the party.
An attempt had even been made in 1941 via contacts between the Duke of Hamilton and the Haushofers for the Duke and Hess to meet on neutral territory, specifically Lisbon. Lord Halifax was aware of these plans, and notably did not share them with Churchill, who had been chosen prime minister over Halifax just a few months previously.
Regardless, it was clear that preparations for a meeting continued on the German side, and this fact alone invalidates the nation that Hess decided to undertake such an absurd mission on some "crazy lark."
In addition, at Hess's express bidding, Albrect Haushofer had been negotiations with the British ambassador in Madrid, Sir Samuel Hoare. As a result of these negotiations, it was agreed that peace could not be reached without the removal of both Hitler and Churchill.
It has even been claimed that Haushofer, Hess, Halifax and Hoare had planned a secret meeting somewhere in Portugal or Spain in early 1941. The French press even reported that Hess was in Spain in 1941, compelling the German press to issue a denial of the French story.
It should be noted that three of the men who allegedly met in early 1941, Hess, Haushofer, and Halifax, were all deeply disturbed by the policies of the Nazis toward the Jews. In 1938, Lord Halifax himself had attempted to initiate discussions in the War Cabinet about providing a Jewish homeland in Western Australia or British Guiana.
Could Hess really bring himself to lead a coup d'etat against Hitler himself? An essay from his university days may give us a clue, namely that although Germany needed a "severe and ruthless" leader, notably, once he had succeeded in restoring Germany's standing in the world, "he would have to stand aside and allow a more moderate government to assume power."
To add further credence to this theory, in his initial contacts with the British after his capture, Hess indicated that he was not speaking for Hitler, but for Germany.
Why then did Hess undertake such a flight at great personal risk to Great Britain itself?
When Hess was forced to parachute and land in a Scottish farmer's field, he was therefore "up for grabs" between two potentially opposing factions within the British government/intelligence apparatus. Conflicting narratives in the official account of what occurred after Hess's capture strongly support this scenario.
Capturing a Captain
One version of events has Hess apprehended by a farmer armed with a pitchfork and then held captive in a cottage. At this point Hess insisted he was "Captain Alfred Horn" and that he had come to Scotland to meet the Duke of Hamilton. After getting taken into custody by the Home Guard, he was moved several times until finally ending up in the Maryhill Barracks in Glasgow.
According to the farmer's own account, Hess's first words were "Am I on the estate of the Duke of Hamilton?" Another early account indicated that Hess additionally stated to the police that his original intention had been to land at the small landing strip at the Duke's residence at Dungavel. Since Hess almost certainly would've known the strip would be too small for his plane, it's possible that by claiming this "he was protecting someone, or something, or both."
After he was taken to the cottage, the farmer's wife offered "Captain Horn" some tea, which Hess declined in good English. Strangely enough, two soldiers seem to suddenly "appear" in the cottage by the farmer's own account, with no explanation as to when they arrived...there are just suddenly there.
After the war, McBride gave his own version of events, with the extraordinary claim that "high-ranking Government officials were aware of his coming." To support this assertion, McBride noted that "no air-raid warning were sounded, nor were the anti-aircraft gunnery control rooms plotting the course of Hess's plane alerted."
To make matters even more confusing, McBride claims that it was he and not the farmer who first apprehended Hess. This discrepancy is not the only example of a possible coverup at play. Again according to McBride himself:
This commotion can be explained by possibility of the conflicting "factions" at play here.
To add to the air of intrigue surrounding Hess's capture, after McBride's death, a letter was discovered from his former commander W.B. Howieson that had advised McBride to "drop this Hess business" lest he "stir up a hornets' nest" with respect to the British Official Secrets Act. Perhaps even more remarkably, this letter was dated May 8, 1974.
Regardless of how he was captured, Hess eventually was taken to Giffnock scout hall and he was searched and an inventory was made of his belongings.
Although this inventory has never been disclosed, an unsubstantiated theory claims Hess had brought an ancient Celtic text called the Lebor Fesa Runda which had once been given as a gift from John Dee to the German Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. Allegedly, Hess acquired the text through his connections to the Thule society and was bringing the rare manuscript as a sort of symbolic diplomatic gift.
At Giffnock we encounter another important player in the Hess Mess, one Major Graham Donald, an officer in the Royal Observer Corps. Major Donald claims he was alerted to the crash and ordered to the scene, and he subsequently accompanied Hess and the entourage to Giffnock where he personally questioned Hess.
It should be noted that the official narrative leaves out a curious, and perhaps not so insignificant, detail: Did nobody recognize Hess? Hess was perhaps one of the most recognizable faces in the Nazi regime, and yet none of his British captors had openly acknowledged recognizing him. Perhaps even more curiously, Major Donald claims to have "determined" Hess's identity by almost ridiculous means.
Another "anomaly" in the aftermath of capture was the British authority's lack of effort to search for any other individuals, since Hess's plane was a two-seater!
Conspiracies and Contingencies
Of the many characters in the Hess Mess, none are are as mysterious and perhaps as crucial to the plot as Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, 14th Duke of Hamilton. The Duke appears to be tantalizingly tough to track down in the days following Hess's arrival.
Another strange event concerning a Polish officer named Roman Battaglia adds to the secrecy and absurdity of the Hess affair. Battaglia was an intelligence officer in General Sikorski's Polish government-in-exile, and for some reason he was allowed to interrogate Hess at Glasgow Police Headquarters for two hours, while speaking in German, and almost entirely unsupervised. In addition, none of the other British officers present spoke German.
This comedy of errors has cemented its way into the standard narrative, and indeed the series of events seems so farcical that a coverup on some level was almost certainly at play.
Was the Duke of Hamilton planning to meet Hess as a representative of the British peace faction? Did a series of unfortunate navigational errors cause Hess to miss his intended target?
This explains Hess's repeated insistence upon being taken to the Duke of Hamilton, as well as a possible contingency plan set in motion in case the flight went awry.
This may also explain the appearance of the Polish officer, who was contacting Hess on behalf the Duke of Hamilton and the peace party. But why the obfuscation from the Duke himself? Why didn't he just use his rank and take charge of Hess?
According to the Duke's version of events, he didn't contact London until the afternoon of May 11, after he had seen Hess and after he had visited the crash site. And here the official narrative becomes even more muddled, as the Duke's version of this contact differs slightly from the version of Jock Colville, Churchill's private secretary.
The Duke maintained that he had contacted the Foreign Office in the afternoon, and the official who answered the phone refused to connect him to a superior without a stated reason, which frustrated the Duke. Fortunately, Colville seems to have just "shown up" at the right time. According to the Duke, Colville claimed that he was ordered to the Foreign Office by Churchill because the Duke "had some interesting information" to convey.
However, according to Colville's version of events, the phone call took place in the morning, and his first words to the Duke were "Has somebody arrived?," a statement that suggests that "he, at least, was expecting a certain 'somebody.'" Regardless, contact was made:
After the Duke had briefed Churchill, the Prime Minister offered one of his many legendary quips: 'Well, Hess or no Hess, I'm going to see the Marx Brothers.'
Prisoner 007
Hess eventually spent some time in the Tower of London, where a curious incident occurred that has fueled much speculation. Charles Fraser-Smith, the inspiration for the gadget wizard "Q" from James Bond lore, was called in by MI5 to measure Hess's Luftwaffe captain's uniform.
While it has been speculated that the copy was for the potential use of a double to send back to Germany, others have claimed that both MI5 and MI6 had begun considering substituting a double for Hess shortly after his arrival.
At this point, the Hess mess truly starts to accelerate its descent into the surreal as "Hess" himself begins to lose his senses. While being held at Mytchett Place under very tight security, "Hess's mental and emotional behavior appeared to deteriorate dramatically" and he attempted suicide more than once.
And here we reach what is perhaps a pivotal juncture in this saga. On June 25, 1942, Hess was moved to Maindiff Court in Wales, a move that occurred with no military escort. The reason given for this secrecy was to foil an alleged plot to kidnap Hess, however that was rendered irrelevant after details of the move were leaked to the Daily Mail, a national tabloid.
As for actual plots to kidnap Hess, there was reason for concern, as illustrated by an important incident revealed in 1979 by a British major from the 11th Fighter Group:
What this story highlights is just how much internecine intrigue there was even among the intelligence apparatuses of countries like Great Britain and Germany.
In any case, intelligence was circulating in Germany that placed Hess in Scotland during the time when he was supposed to be at Mytchett Place. According to this information, which may or may not have been spread as part of an intelligence deception campaign: "Hess had been housed in a villa in Scotland, had his personal servants and wanted for nothing. Churchill had expressly decreed that Hess, on account of his rank, should be accommodated as a general."
In this report, it should be noted that Hess is specifically mentioned as being in complete possession of his mental faculties, and even was witnessed driving around London under escort!
Was a double substituted for Hess? If so, when?
The Hess "double" theory not only explains the need to duplicate his uniform, but it also explains the two reports of Hess in two different places at once. In this scenario, the "Hess" at Maindiff was a double, and the multiple drugging sessions "Hess" underwent after his arrival at Maindiff were in fact mind-control sessions. Similarly, this would explain the decision of the British to build an entire "suite" at their military hospital in Berlin for Hess.
In addition, RAF military police did confirm that meetings took place between Hess and Churchill, and a Scots Guards member asserted that Hess was "in the Tower of London and had been taken to secret meetings with Churchill in late June 1941." However, at the time of these alleged meetings, by official accounts "Hess" was at Mytchett Place.
After all, it was well known that shortly after his capture Hess claimed that he was under "the King's personal protection" and that he insisted that messages be taken directly to George VI.
While often dismissed as fanciful, support for this claim was uncovered by Hess Mess researchers who were anonymously contacted by someone at the Foreign Office. With regards to Hess's claim, the contact replied that a British colonel name "Pilcher" has been ordered to be held incommunicado at Balmoral Palace from 1941 until his death in 1970 for "signing a letter of safe conduct in the King's name."
A letter would explain the apparent confusion on the night of Hess's capture, for it would certainly cause all manners of confusion. Was the letter fake? Was it real?
The Forgotten Flight
This begs the question: was the Crown itself involved? Enter Prince George, the Duke of Kent.
The fourth son of King George V and Queen Mary, Prince George became the Duke of Kent in 1934 and held the title until his untimely death in 1942.
In addition, according to researchers of the Hess Mess, the Duke of Kent was a member of a "reception committee" that had congregated to receive Hess. Allegedly, this "committee" consisted of members of the British "peace" faction, as well as representatives of the Polish government in exile and the international Red Cross.
In this scenario, "the head of the Polish government in exile had offered the throne of Poland--long vacant--to the Duke of Kent."
The Hess peace plan may explain a curiously timed decline in intensity of the bombing campaigns of both Britain and Germany:
Curiously, one of the places the "bi-locating" Hess was sighted in 1942 was at the home of an "equerry to the Duke of Kent, a point that indicates that the "peace party" had regained control of the real Hess."
And at long last we arrive at the tragedy that not only took the life of the Duke of Kent, but may offer a vital clue in solving the mystery of what happened to the real Rudolf Hess.
However, the "flight to Iceland" may have been a cover story. The Duke's flying boat was painted white, the color for aircraft flying to and from neutral Sweden, suggesting that Sweden, not Iceland, was the destination. And that's not all:
Göring had already conducted peace discussions with Sweden, so it's entirely possible that the Duke of Kent was attempting to return Hess to Germany to remove him from danger and/or complete final arrangements in the "deal."
In addition, a cable from the German Ambassador in Portugal to the German Foreign Ministry was uncovered that states:
To make matters even more suspicious, General Sikorski, the head of the Polish government in exile that had allegedly offered the Polish crown to the Duke of Kent, perished less than a year later in an air crash off Gibraltar.