chap10

THE HESS AFFAIR

At 11 p.m. on 10 May 1941, Kendrick was in his office in the Blue Room at Trent Park, waiting for a phone call from his boss, Menzies. At just that time, the Luftwaffe was starting its worst ever bombing raid on the capital. The secret listeners had finished for the night and had returned to their billets, unaware of the extraordinary events unfolding in the north of England.

A lone plane approaching the coast of northern England was being tracked by British radar, but had not been shot down.1 A few minutes later, it ran out of fuel and the pilot baled out on the edge of Eaglesham Moors, a few miles from Dungavel House in Scotland. He was arrested by Major Graham Donald (Royal Observer Corps) and taken to Busby drill hall, where Donald asked the Home Guard to hold him until he had checked the wreckage of the aircraft.

The pilot had flown from Augsburg, Germany, in a Messerschmitt Bf 110 twin-engine fighter plane, on what had been logged as a cross-country test flight across Germany. He believed that his special mission was as important for Germany as it was for Britain. He had actually been heading for the duke of Hamilton’s estate at Dungavel House, believing that Hamilton would be sympathetic to his peace mission.

The pilot initially concealed his true identity from Donald and presented his identity papers in the name of Alfred Horn. No one in the hall that evening recognized him as 46-year-old Rudolf Hess – deputy Führer of the Third Reich and Hitler’s designated successor.² The events that unfolded in subsequent days begin to answer certain questions that were raised in my book The London Cage and clarify for certain that Hess was soon transferred to the jurisdiction of MI6.³

Who in Britain and Germany knew that Hess was flying to Britain that night? Where was he interrogated after his transfer from Scotland? And by whom?

The prisoner’s identity

The wreckage of the ME Bf 110 was searched by Donald and Flying Officer Malcolm. Something seemed to be wrong: they noted that there were no guns or bomb racks, no cameras – and no drop tanks in place.4 Thus the pilot had had insufficient fuel to fly back to Germany. This raised the immediate question of how he was expecting to get back home.

In Donald’s absence, the pilot was interrogated by Roman Battaglia, a member of the Polish consulate in Glasgow. Battaglia did not recognize Hess at the time of the interrogation. Hess remained calm and gave little away, except to reiterate that he had a message for the duke of Hamilton and had once met Hamilton at the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936. Battaglia asked the nature of the special message, but Hess merely replied: ‘It is the highest interests of the British air force.’⁵

When Donald returned to the drill hall, Chief Inspector Gray was trying to question Hess with Battaglia. Gray repeatedly asked Hess how many men had been in the aircraft, and suggested to Hess that they had captured another pilot.⁶

Donald noticed that the pilot was wearing an expensively tailored uniform with three eagle stripes, and he tried to establish his name.

‘Oh, we know his name,’ interrupted Gray. ‘It’s Hoffmann.’

‘Nein, nein,’ replied Hess. ‘Nicht Hoffmann – Hauptmann.’

Donald turned to Gray and corrected him, informing him that Hauptmann was not his name, but his rank: captain in the German air force. Hess seemed pleased that Donald understood him. He stood up with some difficulty, his ankle injured from baling out, and explained that he did not intend to go back to Germany. Battaglia interjected that therefore Hess was a deserter.⁷

Hess protested again that he was a special emissary with a message for the duke of Hamilton and that his name was Alfred Horn. Donald instinctively felt that he recognized the face. A reference to Löwenbräu beer in their conversation produced a sour expression from Horn: Donald knew of only two teetotallers in Nazi Germany – Hitler and Hess. Suddenly it came to him that the man in front of him was Rudolf Hess. Donald relayed a message to the RAF duty controller at Turnhouse, where the duke of Hamilton was serving with No. 602 Squadron RAF, as an air commodore. Hamilton did not believe it could be Hess and so he went to bed.

The following morning, 11 May – and much to his frustration – Donald was informed that Hamilton had not seen Hess during the night. In the interim, the German had been moved to Maryhill Barracks, outside Glasgow.8 Hamilton finally arrived at 10 a.m. and spoke to Hess alone.⁹ He told Hess: ‘If we make peace now, we will be at war again within two years.’¹⁰

Even now, Hamilton was uncertain about Hess’s identity and he telephoned Winston Churchill. Churchill ordered him to fly south and meet him at the prime minister’s wartime country residence, Ditchley Park, north of Oxford. This he duly did.¹¹ Churchill listened to his account of events and decided to dispatch Ivone Kirkpatrick (a German expert at the Foreign Office) to Maryhill Barracks formally to identify Hess.¹² It meant that Hess was not positively identified until Monday, 12 May – 36 hours after he had landed in Scotland. By then, the Nazi regime had made a formal announcement that Hess was suffering from severe mental illness and was missing in a flight over the North Sea. This was followed by a BBC broadcast that Hess was safe in a Glasgow hospital.¹³ After a medical examination by Lieutenant Colonel Gibson Graham (Royal Army Medical Corps), Hess was declared sane and in general good health.¹⁴

At Trent Park, Kendrick had already been alerted by Menzies of Hess’s arrival. Hess was going to have to be treated as a special case and would need careful handling. Menzies told Kendrick that Hess would need to be kept apart from other German prisoners. Churchill decreed that Hess should be ‘strictly isolated in a convenient house not too far from London, fitted by “C” with the necessary appliances [listening equipment] and every endeavour made to study his mentality and get anything worthwhile out of him’.¹⁵

The reports which were generated about Hess in the coming weeks offer a rare, detailed insight into the daily life of spymaster Kendrick at that time. It is clear from the declassified files that Hess was under the jurisdiction and care of MI6 at this time and decisions about him were made by ‘C’.16 This is also confirmed in the official history of MI6.¹⁷ Hess was not to be treated as a peace emissary, or a defector, but as an enemy prisoner of war.¹⁸ His three MI6 minders – Kendrick, Frank Foley and ‘Captain R. Barnes’ – were to gain intelligence from Hess about the Nazi regime. A secret report in the Hess files, previously overlooked by historians, was written at this time by Kendrick’s colleague Denys Felkin (head of air intelligence at Trent Park): ‘So far nothing can be ascertained about either the second occupant of the aircraft, or regarding the Canadian Bearer Bonds.’¹⁹

The reference to a second occupant is a potentially ground-breaking discovery, because inherited versions of the Hess story have always claimed that he flew solo to Scotland. Was there a second person on that flight? And if so, who was it? When he was captured, Hess was found to be carrying £140,000 in Canadian bonds, tied around his body. Were these real bonds? And if so, what was their significance or purpose? Or perhaps they were a coded term for the detailed peace plans that he brought with him. This report by Felkin is currently the only document written by Felkin in the declassified files. His comments in it leave unanswered certain questions about the Hess affair.

It has always been understood that Felkin interrogated Hess, but no report on such an interrogation has been released. Cynthia Turner (née Crew), who later worked for Felkin’s air intelligence section at Latimer House, commented: ‘It was generally understood that one of our senior RAF officers, I think it was Squadron Leader Spencsely [sic], was sent to interview him [Hess].’²⁰ Squadron Leader G.W. Spenceley was an interrogator with ADI(K), the air intelligence section attached to CSDIC, in 1941, and an official report of his interview with Hess does survive among the declassified files.²¹

Hess’s mission remains shrouded in controversy and conspiracy theories. There are many unanswered questions. Who in Germany knew? Did he come with the knowledge of Adolf Hitler or Hermann Goering or both? He always claimed that he flew to Britain on his own initiative, without Hitler’s authority or the knowledge of any member of the Nazi government.22 He argued that Hitler did not want war with Britain, but a permanent understanding that would give Hitler free rein in Europe, while allowing Britain to keep its empire intact, with no interference from Germany. Hitler believed that Russia was the real threat, and therefore Germany and Britain should form an alliance.²³

Historian Michael Smith has uncovered evidence of an MI6 sting operation to lure Hess to Britain, already being planned in 1940.²⁴ Kendrick’s colleague Frank Foley had been dispatched to Lisbon for two weeks that year to assess the viability of such a plan. He had returned to London and advised ‘C’ that it was too risky. The ‘Hess sting’ was apparently abandoned. Or was it?

Hess and the Tower of London

During the night of 16/17 May, Hess was moved by train, under tight security and in the utmost secrecy, from Scotland to the Tower of London.²⁵ This was to be his temporary quarters, while Mytchett Place, near Aldershot, was made ready for him and ‘wired for sound’. Churchill wrote that Hess was ‘to be kept in the strictest seclusion, and those in charge of him should refrain from conversation’.²⁶ Churchill believed that Hess was an accomplice of Hitler’s in

all murders, treacheries and cruelties by which the Nazi regime imposed itself first on Germany, as it now seeks to impose itself on Europe . . . the horrors of the German concentration camps, the brutal persecution of the Jews, the perfidious inroad upon Czechoslovakia, the unspeakable, incredible brutalities and bestialities of the German invasion and conquest of Poland . . . are all cases in which he [Hess] has participated.²⁷

Whether Kendrick ever visited Hess in the Tower is not known. Hess was accommodated in the Queen’s House overlooking the White Tower. He expected to be in Britain for only a few days, before returning to Germany; but MI6 had other plans. What followed in the next 24 hours was recalled by Charles Fraser-Smith, who was already undertaking work for another branch of military intelligence, MI9, where he was sourcing and dispatching special gadgets to be smuggled to British POWs in camps to aid escape.28 He received a phone call from MI5 and was asked if he could copy the uniform of a senior German officer. Fraser-Smith confirmed that he could. The following evening, he travelled with his men to the agreed location in an MI6 car. With him was an experienced tailor from the textile company Courtaulds. They were taken into a room where an immaculate uniform of an officer of the German air force was laid out on a table. One of the MI5 officers took Fraser-Smith to one side and said: ‘We’ve given Hess something to ensure that he doesn’t wake up until morning. But this is his uniform, and we must have it back to him in the next four hours.’

A duplicate of Hess’s uniform was made within that time. ‘What it was used for – if it was used, is something I shall be interested to know one day,’ wrote Fraser-Smith.²⁹ It is possible that British intelligence had intended to send a ‘double’ of Hess back to Germany, but this did not transpire.

While Hess enjoyed attention in the Tower, believing he was about to return to Germany, Kendrick was organizing the Post Office Research Station at Dollis Hill to install bugging equipment and an M Room at Mytchett Place. Subsequent servicing of the equipment would also be carried out by engineers from Dollis Hill.³⁰ They were only permitted to enter the camp with the agreement of ‘C’, and their passes were held by Captain Howard at MI6 while they were not on site. Although a list of secret listeners for Mytchett Place has not been seen, documentation indicates that one was a Lieutenant H. Reade. He was a shorthand typist and was engaged in recording Hess’s conversations.³¹ He appears to have come and gone for certain periods of time and not to have been based in the camp permanently. Mytchett Place was given the codename ‘Camp Z’, and special conditions there were designed so that a study could be made of Hess and any worthwhile intelligence gained from him. He was to be held under the care of his MI6 minders, Kendrick, Foley and ‘Captain Barnes’.

Camp Z

On 18 May, Lieutenant Colonel A. Malcom Scott was handed top-secret orders to proceed to Camp Z at midday that day and take command of the place as camp commandant, in charge of its strict security.32 Hess was allowed books, writing materials and recreation items, but no newspapers or radio broadcasts. Any letters he wished to send to Germany had to be approved by the director of prisoners of war. No visitors were allowed into the camp unless prescribed by the Foreign Office and unless they carried a special military permit. Even Prime Minister Winston Churchill was not permitted into the camp without clearance from MI6.³³

Kendrick, Foley and ‘Barnes’ were issued with special passes.³⁴ Kendrick was given the name ‘Colonel L.G. Wallace’, to avoid Hess recognizing him as the spymaster expelled from Vienna just three years earlier. Foley appears to have been the only minder who was not given a pseudonym. Hess was known in reports by a codename ‘Jonathan’ or ‘Z’.

On 20 May, a military ambulance carrying Hess arrived at Mytchett Place. He was escorted to his room and then introduced to Kendrick, Foley and ‘Barnes’. Although Hess never discovered Kendrick’s identity, he did suspect that he was being held by the British secret service and frequently complained that he believed his minders were trying to poison him – something that was vehemently denied.³⁵

It was expected that Hess would give away key information about the Nazi regime during the first few days. All conversations were recorded and transcribed in an M Room on site. Even though these transcripts have not been declassified, a few summary reports of the conversations have been released and provide sketchy material. Soon after his arrival, Hess began to display anxiety that his new private quarters were behind barbed wire and bars and within a ‘grille’.³⁶ The grille – consisting of thick metal bars and a secure door – had been constructed around the main quarters upstairs to prevent Hess from wandering around the rest of the house. The door to this grille was always guarded and locked when necessary. Kendrick’s bedroom was next to Hess’s within the grille. With all this security, Hess again complained that he had fallen into the hands of a clique of the secret service.

Menzies (‘C’) wrote that Hess was very depressed and wished to be left alone, but his psychological state might be turned to MI6’s advantage: ‘We are of the opinion that this might be the psychological moment when he might change his attitude . . . Doctor says he is moody, like a spoilt child. His present mood should, if possible, be exploited.’37

On the first evening, Hess was served dinner in his room at 8 o’clock and appeared more settled. At 11 o’clock the duty officer, Second Lieutenant W. Malone, took up his position within the grille to guard him for the night. Hess woke at around 8 o’clock the following morning, having had only five hours’ sleep. He asked for bacon and fish for breakfast. After being served the food in his room, he confided to ‘Barnes’ that he was being poisoned and suspected the guard, Malone. Hess then refused to eat or drink. At 1 o’clock, he finally came downstairs to take lunch with his three minders. He appeared in much better spirits and apologized for his suspicions at breakfast. After lunch, he returned to his room, because his ankle was still hurting from the crash. When he reappeared downstairs at 8 o’clock that evening, Kendrick looked up to see Hess in the full uniform of a captain of the German air force. This incident marked the beginning of increasingly strange and unpredictable behaviour by Hess.

Two days after Hess’s arrival, on 22 May, he expressed the belief that the guards were planning to murder him. He spent the morning in his room and came down to lunch at 1 o’clock dressed in plain clothes. After lunch, he walked in the garden with Kendrick, Foley, ‘Barnes’ and Dr Gibson Graham. At dinner with them that evening, Hess was much easier in his mind and franker in his conversation. He remained convinced that Germany was going to win the war, and told Graham:

There is no oil shortage, Germany has more aircraft than she knows what to do with, and submarines are being made in every part of the country, even in Czechoslovakia. The Führer has no wish to destroy the British Empire, but if we persist in fighting, we will be forced to launch a terrible air offensive. It will result in the killing of hundreds of thousands of people.

Hess still clung to the hope that he could negotiate a peace deal. Graham’s report noted that Hess was

in a high state of depression at the possible failure of his mission, and has hinted that it might be better for him to die. He is convinced that he is in the hands of a clique who are preventing him from daily access to the King, and that the only way for him to secure access to the King is through the Duke of Hamilton.38

At around 10.15 a.m. the following day, Hess went into the garden with Kendrick, Foley and ‘Barnes’. He stayed only a few minutes before returning to his room with ‘Barnes’, and became increasingly suspicious of his three minders. In the weeks after his transfer from the Tower, he began to notice that his food and medication left him with a distinctly unusual sensation, and this may have been at the root of his belief that he was being given poison or ‘truth drugs’. He alleged that

a short time after taking it, a curious development of warmth rising over the nape of the neck to the head: in the head feelings which are similar to headache pains, but which are not the same: there follows for many hours an extraordinary feeling of well-being, physical and mental energy joie de vivre, optimism. Little sleep during the night but this did not in the least destroy my sense of euphoria.³⁹

Hess observed withdrawal symptoms when the unknown substance was not being used. He felt a difference in his body after drinking a cup of milk.⁴⁰ Without any apparent cause, he was plunged into pessimism and felt on the verge of a nervous breakdown. This was followed by lengthy periods of exceptionally rapid exhaustion of the brain. Hess became convinced that his captors were trying to poison him and he accused Kendrick and Foley of drugging him with ‘Mexican Brain Poison’; he is thought to have been referring to mescaline, which was supposed to induce talkativeness.41 MI5 was encouraged by the War Office to give Hess the barbiturate evipan sodium.⁴² A large selection of drugs had been confiscated from Hess when he landed in Scotland. These were subsequently analysed by the Medical Research Council and found to be harmless.⁴³

On the morning of 25 May, Hess refused to speak to anyone. Outside, he silently watched the commanding officer’s parade from a distance, with Kendrick, Foley and ‘Barnes’. Without warning, he launched into a modified Nazi goose-step in front of them. Afterwards, he remained in his room all afternoon, except for a short walk with ‘Barnes’. At 5.30 p.m., ‘C’ arrived at Camp Z for a private meeting with Kendrick, Foley and ‘Barnes’. They discussed the lack of progress with Hess from an intelligence point of view. It is not known whether ‘C’ spoke with Hess.

The next day, 26 May, it rained so hard that Hess was unable to take a walk. Apart from eating his meals downstairs with his minders, he read in his room. Kendrick noted how depressed and dejected Hess had become; in his opinion, Hess was beginning to realize that Britain was very different from what he had been led to believe. The following morning was wet again and Hess was similarly unable to go out. He managed a walk after tea, with ‘Barnes’ and Graham. He seemed calmer and in a better temper, but complained of his food being over-seasoned. He was restless that night and woke at 5 a.m.

Nothing much by way of conversation was exchanged over breakfast on 28 May, and Hess went out for a long walk in the garden afterwards. In his absence, Kendrick and Foley discussed when to break the news to him of the sinking of the Bismarck, Germany’s newest and finest battleship. They decided on that lunchtime. Hess had requested the same food as the previous day, and said he preferred to eat in the company of his minders than alone in his room. Over lunch, Kendrick broke the news of the Bismarck.⁴⁴ Hess displayed shock, swiftly complained of exhaustion and backache, and retired to bed. The sinking of the Bismarck provoked no comment from him, which was rather a disappointment for his minders. Kendrick and ‘Barnes’ were frustrated and bored with ‘Death’s Head’, as they nicknamed Hess. Kendrick had a running wager with ‘Barnes’ and Foley about how many shillings Hess was worth in terms of intelligence. That day he piped up to ‘Barnes’: ‘He’s now worth thirty-five shillings a week – no more.’45

Elements of paranoia were beginning to haunt Hess. He feared that a member of the secret service would creep into his bedroom at night and cut an artery to fake his suicide. He said as much to Kendrick and told him that he was especially suspicious of ‘Barnes’, because of his ill-fitting uniform and because his badges had obviously been removed.⁴⁶

Hess openly articulated again that the British secret service wanted him dead and the method would be to drive him to insanity and suicide. He drafted a letter stating that he would not commit suicide: if he was found dead, Hitler would know that he had not taken his own life. He complained of the endless sound of motorbike engines, loud voices and people clicking their heels – all designed, he said, to drive him mad.⁴⁷

At the evening meal on 28 May, Hess seemed to have a good appetite. He insisted that Kendrick helped himself first to the fish. He then took the fish from Kendrick’s plate, rather than from the serving dish. This was all part of his paranoia and his efforts to avoid being poisoned. Hess’s delusion even extended to seeing Hitler’s face in his soup.

That night Hess asked for a hairnet for bed. Malone wrote in his private diary:

I find it difficult to realise that this rather broken man who slouches into his chair, careless as to his dress, whose expressions are unstudied, who is capable of hiding his emotions, who swings in mood from cheerfulness to depression in a few hours, whose body reflects his mental pain and whose mind is clouded with delusionary ideas . . . that this man was the Deputy Fuhrer of the Reich!⁴⁸

Hess retired to bed at 10 o’clock on 28 May. An hour later, when visited by Dr Graham, he asked for a sedative because he felt confused and very anxious.

The next day, Hess was silent at breakfast. Kendrick submitted a report to ‘C’:

The following are the latest developments in Jonathan’s mental state. In view of their seriousness, it is considered urgent that you should read the Medical Officer’s report and extracts from the night Duty Officer’s report. We would point out that Jonathan has indicated, should he die, there would be terrible repercussions. The inference we draw from that statement is that Hitler would not believe in suicide and would take reprisals on British people in his hands.49

As a result of Hess’s preoccupation with death and suicide, Graham recommended a psychiatric investigation, stating: ‘this man shows definitive abnormal traits which have become suddenly acute and . . . the problem is one for a skilled psychiatrist.’⁵⁰

Major Dicks and Colonel Rees

Graham was temporarily relieved of his duties at Camp Z, and Major Henry Dicks, a psychiatrist in the Royal Army Medical Corps, arrived on the afternoon of 29 May to make an assessment of Hess. Dicks was already working for Kendrick’s unit CSDIC. Having been born in Estonia to a British father and German mother, he could speak several languages. At CSDIC, he provided analysis of the psychological profile of prisoners of war and assessed how best to obtain information from them. He also compiled reports on the state of morale in the German forces and recommended how to conduct psychological warfare and target propaganda for maximum effect. As far as Hess knew, Dicks was an ordinary doctor, but his presence at Camp Z would help to extract some useful information for MI6. Hess seemed very relaxed and chatted a great deal with him on Dicks’ first day.

On the evening of 30 May, Scott joined Hess and his minders for supper. Hess remained silent throughout and refused to be drawn into conversation. At the end of the meal, he asked to speak to Scott. Kendrick translated. Hess made a formal protest about being kept within the enclosure and asked for parole, giving an undertaking not to try to escape. He complained of being trapped with Dicks and ‘the German-speaking companions’, who were thwarting his mission to save the world from war. Kendrick telephoned ‘C’ and expressed concern that Scott was going to ask for a relaxation of restrictions on Hess’s movements within the camp.

At the end of May 1941, Hess was assessed by Colonel Rees, consultant in psychological medicine to the army. Rees was a fluent German speaker. Before seeing Hess, he was briefed by Kendrick, Foley and ‘Barnes’. Rees’s assessment of Hess is contained in a three-page report, in which he commented:

While this man is certainly not today insane in the sense that would make one consider certification, he is mentally sick. He is anxious and somewhat tense; he is of a somewhat paranoid type . . . In my opinion, Hess is a man of unstable mentality and has almost certainly been like that since adolescence . . . a psychopathic personality of the schizophrenic type.

Two days later, 1 June, Hess was still suffering from restlessness, particularly at night. He now began to treat Dicks with even greater distrust and suspicion. The following day, Hess stayed in bed until midday, after another restless night. He complained to Kendrick at lunch that his food was over-seasoned in a deliberate attempt to starve him. He went straight to his room and wrote furiously all afternoon. Kendrick and Foley discussed what to do about his periods of introspection, and suggested to Dicks that he persuade Hess to come down for a walk in the garden. This he duly did. That night, Hess requested something to help him sleep and was given the drug phanodorm, used to treat insomnia.

By 4 June, Hess was displaying symptoms of deep depression and was almost suicidal. He was observed sitting morosely under a tree in the garden, in a position that looked quite uncomfortable, and refusing to speak. From the window that evening, his minders observed him pacing up and down in the garden, very agitated. Hidden microphones in the trees overhead him muttering that he couldn’t stand this any longer. When he came back inside, he refused the company of his minders. It was 10 o’clock when he turned to them and said ‘goodnight’. He had never wished them goodnight before. Kendrick became uneasy. As the clock in the sitting room chimed half past 10, Kendrick went off to talk to Commandant Scott. He expressed concern that Hess could be planning to kill himself that night. It was a concern shared by Foley and ‘Barnes’. Scott ordered Second Lieutenant Malone to be on duty inside the grille.