The Hitler–Hess Deception

by Martin Allen

  Why, then, did the German leadership flock to the Duke like moths to a candle? Ribbentrop should have realised that the British had created a very subtle situation in the Iberian Peninsula. The Duke of Windsor – all glitz and show, and taking the attention – was politically unimportant. It was the starch-collared new Ambassador, Sir Samuel Hoare, who really mattered.

  Hoare had the ear of both the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, and despite the illusion of friction between him and Churchill, the experts at the German Foreign Ministry should have realised that Churchill would not have sent someone he did not trust to such a strategically important place as Spain. If Spain joined the Axis, Britain would lose Gibraltar, and thus her access to the Mediterranean, and with it possibly Malta and eventually Egypt as well. It could quickly become a disastrous chain reaction.

  There are two reasons why the Germans mistakenly chose to woo the Duke of Windsor. The first is that the main peace protagonist on the German side this time was von Ribbentrop, who was not known for his politico-diplomatic acumen or intellectual capacity. The second is that it was probably felt by some within the German hierarchy that despite his reduced circumstances, the former King still retained his access to the decision-makers within the British government. He was a personal friend of Churchill and had eminent connections in the House of Lords, so he might yet be able to further moves towards a peaceable accord.

  A week after the Duke’s arrival in Lisbon, Ribbentrop received a telegram from his Ambassador in Madrid, von Stohrer, informing him that the Spanish Foreign Minister, Colonel Beigbeder y Atienza, ‘told me today that the Duke of Windsor has asked that a confidential agent be sent to Lisbon to whom he might give a communication for the Foreign Minister [Ribbentrop]’.47

  Within a few days of receiving von Stohrer’s telegram, Ribbentrop summoned Walter Schellenberg, Germany’s peace emissary to the British government a mere six months before, to a meeting at the Foreign Ministry. Schellenberg realised that his mission to Lisbon was not merely to act for the Foreign Ministry when Ribbentrop telephoned Hitler to report on the meeting. As Schellenberg sat listening on an extension to Ribbentrop’s call to the Führer, he heard Hitler periodically interject, ‘Yes – certainly – agreed.’ Towards the end of the call Hitler declared: ‘Schellenberg should particularly bear in mind the importance of the Duchess’s attitude and try as hard as possible to get her support. She has great influence over the Duke.’ After a few more words from Ribbentrop, Schellenberg heard the Führer conclude: ‘Good. He has all the authority he needs. Tell him from me that I am relying on him.’48

  Within a few days Ribbentrop received a message from the German Ambassador in Lisbon, Hoyningen-Huene, who reported: ‘The Duke paid tribute to the Führer’s desire for peace, which was in complete agreement with his own point of view. He was firmly convinced that if he had been King it would never have come to war.’49

  Over the course of the next two weeks much dialogue was undertaken with the Duke, primarily through a Portuguese intermediary named Santo y Silva (nicknamed ‘The Holy Ghost’ by the Intelligence community). At the end of July, Hoyningen-Huene reported:

  The Duke intends to postpone his departure for the Bahamas Islands [where he had been appointed Governor] as long as possible, at least until the beginning of August, in hope of a turn of events favourable to him … He is convinced that if he had remained on the throne war would have been avoided, and he characterised himself as a firm supporter of a peaceful arrangement with Germany.50

  Whilst these negotiations were proceeding in Lisbon, on 19 July 1940 Hitler made a simultaneous effort to placate the British and open the door to peace by giving a speech at the Reichstag that, apart from some sniping at Churchill, was modest in tone and urged that no benefit could be gained from continuing the conflict. The immediate response from Britain was a loudly proclaimed ‘No’ broadcast by the BBC on all wavelengths.

  There have never been any British disclosures of the details of what the Duke of Windsor was negotiating with the German government. The only clues to have surfaced allude to a seven-point plan, which was of sufficient importance for Hess secretly to meet the Duke in the privacy of the Sacramento a Lapa home of the German Ambassador to Portugal, Hoyningen-Huene, on Sunday, 28 July 1940, for a series of secret meetings. Unfortunately, the Duke was spotted by an expatriate Briton living nearby, Mrs Judith Symington, who recalled:

  I was driving home one day when I caught sight of a man in the car in front. I thought I recognised him. ‘Isn’t that the Duke of Windsor?’ I asked, nudging my husband. The car stopped some distance from the German residence, and sure enough, it was he who got out. He was wearing a navy suit, and he walked along the street, up the steps and into the house. Obviously he didn’t want to be seen. It wasn’t the only occasion, either, that I spotted him going to see Hoyningen-Heune.51

  Indeed, David Eccles, a high-ranking member of the diplomatic staff at the British Embassy in Lisbon, later recalled that the Duke of Windsor ‘spent his days intriguing. We wanted to get him out. We knew once we had him on the other side of the Atlantic, we could watch him.’52

  On 1 August the Duke, under increasing pressure from the London, departed for the faraway Bahamas. His endeavours to negotiate a peaceable accord proceeded not one jot further, for the British government refused to countenance any more interference from the man who had caused such constitutional turmoil less than four years before. Also, unbeknownst to the Duke of Windsor, peace with Germany was the last thing on Winston Churchill’s mind.

  Unsuccessful as they were, the Windsor negotiations – for that is undoubtedly what they were – in Lisbon in 1940 played a key role in what was to come. By August 1940, what had taken place in Lisbon would be added to the sum of knowledge gathered by British Intelligence on the Dahlerus Initiative and the Venlo Incident. This would, to the British government’s surprise, be added to significantly by a fourth peaceable move.

  This fourth peace offer would emanate directly from Hitler himself, and it would be so secret that the Führer told no one in Germany about it at all, not in the diplomatic service, the government, or the party; not even his inner circle.

  This latest attempt to open peace discussions caused considerable consternation in Whitehall. The very few men in the British Foreign Office who knew about it feared that the more impressive these peaceable attempts became, the greater the likelihood that they might dent Lord Halifax’s determination to stand by Churchill and his ‘no surrender’ policy, and the resolve of those in the government who might be tempted to accept a quick fix today, and worry about a Europe dominated by Nazi Germany tomorrow. There was concern that the British government might split between those determined to defeat Germany, and those who might vote against Churchill in the House of Commons for peace, to save Britain from any further suffering. This new initiative came at the height of the Blitz, those crucial weeks of the Battle for Britain, which made the situation all the more worrying.

  Hitler’s offer on this occasion indicated that he was now approaching peace from a geopolitical, rather than military, point of view, revealing the continuing influence of his long discussions with Karl Haushofer in the 1920s and thirties. It also perhaps indicates that the intellect and the foreign affairs interests of Rudolf Hess lay behind the offer now being proposed to the British Ambassador in Stockholm, Victor Mallet, via Swedish High Court Justice Dr Ekeberg, once again through Hitler’s personal legal adviser, Dr Ludwig Weissauer. Mallet duly reported back to London that:

  Hitler, according to his emissary [Weissauer], feels responsible for the future of the white race. He wishes for sincere friendship with England. He wishes for the restoration of peace, but the ground must be prepared: only after such careful preparation can official discussions begin. Up till then it must be a condition that conversations be quite unofficial and secret …

  The Führer’s basic ideas [are that] economic problems are quite different from those of the past … In order to achieve ec
onomic evolution one must calculate on a basis of wide territories and consider them as an economic unit. Napoleon had attempted this, but in his day it was not possible because France was not in the centre of Europe and communications were too difficult. Now Germany is in the centre of Europe and has the means of providing communication and transport services.

  England and America now have and will naturally continue to have the biggest navies and they need the oceans for their maintenance. Germany has the continent. As for Russia, Weissauer gave the impression that she should be considered as a potential enemy.

  Mallet reported Hitler’s peace terms as follows:

  The Empire remains with all the colonies and mandates.

  The continental supremacy of Germany will not be called into question.

  All questions concerning the Mediterranean and the French, Belgian and Dutch colonies are open to discussion.

  Poland. There must be ‘a Polish State’.

  Czechoslovakia must belong to Germany.

  Weissauer did not go into detail, but Ekeberg understood by implication that the other European States occupied by Germany [Norway, Holland, Belgium and France] would have their sovereignty restored. It was only owing to the present military situation that Germany now has to continue to occupy them until the peace.

  Dr Ekeberg … is convinced that Weissauer is very close to Hitler. He thinks he may have been one of the men sent secretly to Moscow last year to prepare underground for the German–Soviet Pact.

  Finally, Mallet commented: ‘I am naturally rather uncomfortable at having become even to this small extent involved in this mysterious proceeding … If you want any more questions asked I can easily get them put by Ekeberg …’53

  Just before dispatching his report to London, Mallet received news that Weissauer had imparted further vital details to Dr Ekeberg concerning Hitler’s plans for Europe. He typed an additional note for enclosure with his report, as ‘the [diplomatic] bag never left last night after all’:

  It appears that last night [Ekeberg] again met Dr Weissauer, and took the opportunity of asking him for more details about Hitler’s plans for the occupied countries … Weissauer said that Hitler wished to re-establish the sovereignty of all the occupied countries ‘auf die dauer’ [i.e. on a permanent basis]. He has no interest in the internal affairs of these states. Germany’s interest is to prevent a fresh war as Europe needs 100 years of peace. In the economic sphere, however, the occupied countries must be part of the European continent, but with complete political liberty …54

  This latest peaceable attempt by Hitler was by no means insubstantial, especially in the context of the period. By the summer of 1940 Germany had conquered Poland, Norway, Denmark, Luxembourg, Holland, Belgium and France. The British Army had been defeated and only just escaped from Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain was raging in the skies over London and the Home Counties, and Britain’s cities were suffering a ferocious blitz both night and day. Nevertheless, on receiving news of Hitler’s overtures, the Foreign Secretary’s Chief Diplomatic Adviser Sir Robert Vansittart rejected them outright.

  Sixty years on, Vansittart’s letter to Lord Halifax still makes uncomfortable reading, for it makes it clear that the mandarins of Whitehall had a totally different perception of what Britain was fighting for than did the majority of politicians, or the population at large. Britain’s leading civil servants and politicians, including Vansittart and especially Churchill, had viewed Germany – and not particularly Nazism – as a threat for a very long time. This emanated from the nineteenth-century German policy of ‘Drang nach Osten’, which came with the fall of the Ottoman Empire, when Moltke and later the Kaiser became convinced that Germany could fill the resultant power-vacuum. In the eyes of men like Vansittart, Britain had been constantly pitted against German efforts to encroach into the Middle and Near East – ‘the German Reich concept’ – ever since the 1890s. Now, with the Nazis at the helm, the dangers were far greater.

  Vansittart’s letter read:

  Secretary of State. URGENT.

  I hope that you will instruct Mr. Mallet that he is on no account to meet Dr. Weissauer. The future of civilisation is at stake. It is a question of we or they now, and either the German Reich or this country has got to go under, and not only under, but right under. I believe it will be the German Reich. This is a very different thing from saying that Germany has got to go under; but the German Reich and the Reich idea have been the curse of the world for 75 years, and if we do not stop it this time, we never shall, and they will stop us. The enemy is the German Reich and not merely Nazism, and those who have not yet learned this lesson have learned nothing whatsoever, and would let us in for a sixth war even if we survive the fifth. I would far sooner take my chances of surviving the fifth. All possibility of compromise has now gone by, and it has got to be a fight to the finish, and to a real finish.

  I trust that Mr Mallet will get the most categorical instructions. We have had much more than enough of Dahlerus, Goerdeler,* Weissauer and company.55

  Despite Vansittart’s vehement rejection of any peace proposal emanating from Berlin, Weissauer’s secret offer was still considered of sufficient importance for Churchill to put it, by ciphered telegram, before the heads of government of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and the High Commissioner of the Union of South Africa. Hitler’s proposal was eventually rejected on the grounds that Germany’s forces would have to be withdrawn from all occupied territory before Britain was prepared to discuss peace – a demand that Hitler was sure to reject.

  It was at this point that Hitler’s repeated peace moves over twelve months of war came under the scrutiny of British Intelligence. They were soon perceived as evidence of a weakness in the German Führer that might be exploited.

  In mid-August 1940, Reginald ‘Rex’ Leeper, the head of Special Operations 1 (SO1), a branch of Britain’s newest weapon, the Special Operations Executive (SOE), wrote a letter to Hugh Gaitskell, then a civil servant at the Ministry of Economic Warfare. The letter was primarily to apologise for failing to send Gaitskell the minutes of a previous meeting. However, Leeper went on to comment conversationally:

  You may be interested to know that following Ingrams’ B[lack] P[ropaganda] suggestion, I took the idea to the P[rime] M[inister] who felt the German Leadership was now ripe for exploitation. I am sure the key to this B.P. lies within [Hitler’s] recent attempts to find an accord. Ingrams and Crossman are going to look into this idea as any below the belt Ops we can initiate at this critical time can only help.56

  Within a year, Leeper’s seed of an idea would germinate into one of the most successful and best-kept British Intelligence secrets of the Second World War. It was an operation that would grow to encompass the top men of SO1, four Cabinet Ministers, two Ambassadors, and the Prime Minister. It would result in the complete ruination of Hitler’s war strategy, causing him to make the fatal blunder that would cost him the war. It would also, incidentally, result in one of the strangest events of the Second World War – the unexpected arrival of Rudolf Hess on British soil in May 1941.

  Destiny, however, can turn on a very small pivot indeed, and by an incredible turn of good fortune Leeper’s SO1 just happened to possess a crucial asset that would give them access directly into the Nazi leadership’s foreign affairs structure. With the coming of war, an unremarkable City of London stockbroker had been recruited to become SOE’s Director of Finance and Administration. He was also by coincidence one of the few men in Britain who could communicate personally with Albrecht Haushofer in such a manner that the German foreign affairs adviser would never suspect it was anything but genuine. Through Haushofer, Leeper and his men at SO1 realised, they could penetrate the German leadership’s inner sanctum – the Führer, Adolf Hitler, and his deputy, Rudolf Hess. And their objective would not be peace.

  CHAPTER 3

  Flag-Waving

  The summer of 1940 was to be a pivotal moment in the Second World War. It was a time which could have seen B
ritain, assailed on all fronts by the overwhelming might of Germany’s armed forces, forced to accept a bitter armistice that left Hitler master of Europe. The Battle of the Atlantic was beginning to bite; Norway, Denmark, Holland, Luxembourg, Belgium and France had all fallen; and Britain’s armed forces, having suffered a severe mauling, had been forced to flee the continent in an armada of little ships.

  Within weeks of Dunkirk, once the Luftwaffe’s support infrastructure had moved up to occupy French airfields, Operation Adlerangriffe (Eagle-raids) had been launched, dispatching wave after wave of Stukas, Heinkel 111s and Junker 88s to obliterate all the RAF’s bases in the south of England. This was clearly a prelude to invasion, and many predicted Britain’s defeat within not months, but weeks. The forecasters of impending disaster were not limited to the foreign press, diplomats or panicky civilians, but included some of the top men within the War Cabinet itself. This was a cause of as much concern to Churchill as the conduct of the war itself.

  Churchill was the constitutionally appointed leader of a democratic country, the head of a coalition government assembled in a time of exceptional peril. If events went badly, he himself was not immune to the vagaries of politics. Had he ever lost a vote of confidence in the House of Commons – and he was to survive several during the war – he could have found himself ousted from power, his premiership taken by someone who might be more inclined to reach a deal with Hitler and negotiate Britain out of the war. The Nazis, who were after all politicians too, realised this as well.