The Hitler–Hess Deception

by Martin Allen

  Some indications that things were not going to pan out for Dalton at SOE became apparent almost immediately. Even as he attained his glittering new ministerial post, he found that he had effectively become step-parent to twins, one of which he understood and wanted, and another with which he never really came to grips, and which would in the end prove to be his undoing. SO2’s remit for sabotage and resistance was a form of warfare that was clear-cut and easily understood. Yet Dalton had scant experience of a dark-side organisation like SO1, led by men he had little in common with. He also had difficulty comprehending how far they were capable of going in their pursuit of undermining the enemy by political warfare. Thus, while S02’s cloak-and-dagger activities proceeded at a satisfactory pace, Dalton increasingly found his time taken up by SO1, based out at Woburn Abbey.

  Friction soon developed between the professorial Dalton and Rex Leeper, the fifty-two-year-old Foreign Office civil servant leading SO1. Leeper had not been best pleased to find himself subordinated to Dalton. During the First World War, he had served in the Intelligence Department of the Foreign Office, where he had a special responsibility for Russia. After the Bolshevik revolution and the murder of the Tsar, Winston Churchill, then Secretary of State for War, sent British troops to Murmansk to aid the anti-Bolshevik forces.

  What is not widely known is that Churchill, with the assistance of Rex Leeper, a British diplomat named Robert Bruce Lockhart, a Russian émigré named Georgi Rosenblum (better known under his alias as master-spy Sidney Reilly) and a British Intelligence agent named George Hill, also plotted unsuccessfully to bring about the downfall of Lenin and Bolshevism. This was a secret project that operated in Russia for months, and much money was spent trying to co-ordinate anti-Bolshevik forces to move against Lenin and his followers. On 31 August 1918 there was an assassination attempt on Lenin, and in the mayhem that ensued the anti-Bolshevik plot collapsed, Reilly vanished, Hill escaped, and Bruce Lockhart was arrested and detained. Bruce Lockhart was subsequently released in exchange for Maxim Litvinov, the unofficial Bolshevik Ambassador in London, but only after considerable pressure from the British government, conducted through the mediation of SIS’s resident agent in Moscow – a certain thirty-eight-year-old Samuel Hoare.

  After his sensational if unsuccessful wartime involvement in plots to bring Bolshevism crashing down, Rex Leeper returned to the Foreign Office, where he remained during the inter-war years, eventually taking over the Political Intelligence Department (PID) at the Foreign Office in the late 1930s. However, he did not break off his association with Churchill.

  Throughout the 1930s Leeper was a frequent visitor to Churchill’s home in Kent, Chartwell, keeping the great man advised on some of Britain’s most sensitive foreign affairs matters, particularly those related to the great new threat to European democracy – German Nazism. Leeper also became very close to the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office and later Chief Diplomatic Adviser to the Foreign Secretary Sir Robert Vansittart, another of Churchill’s allies, and the three men joined forces in a secret, unofficial triumvirate to oppose German expansionism.

  Following the Rhineland crisis of 1936, when Hitler, completely flouting the Treaty of Versailles, remilitarised the Rhineland, Leeper and Churchill devised a plan to use Churchill’s standing to bring together those in Britain opposed to Nazism, under the unsubtle slogan ‘Nazi Germany is the enemy of civilisation’. Among those present at the very first luncheon given by the new organisation, the Anti-Nazi League, was Hugh Dalton.26

  Rex Leeper was therefore an insider. He had been involved in Churchill’s anti-Bolshevik machinations in 1918, had kept him briefed about foreign affairs developments during the great man’s wilderness years, and was an unofficial co-founder of the Anti-Nazi League. He was firmly entrenched amongst the small group of those who had early realised that Nazism would one day present a threat to European democracy. With the coming of war Leeper’s PID became attached to Department EH, soon to be redesignated as SO1.27 It was not long before Leeper and Churchill’s old friends Robert Bruce Lockhart and George Hill also found themselves involved with SO1, along with a plethora of lesser-known men who were also experienced in the art of propaganda, subterfuge, and political and psychological warfare.

  Despite his connection with SO1, Rex Leeper was not a belligerent hawk focused solely on the destruction of Germany. He could be as panicky about Britain’s chances of survival as anyone else. In June 1940, a little over a week after Dunkirk, Bruce Lockhart noted that Leeper had been ‘in a state of nervous tension; unable to work, alarmed, defeatist in the sense that he thought the end had come’.28

  The calamitous events of May and June 1940 came as a great shock to many in the British government, the Foreign Office and the military, not to mention the civilian population. For most of the last hundred years Britain had assumed an air of dominance in the world, and those running the nation and the Empire believed her position to be unassailable. Britain still possessed the world’s greatest empire, even if it was beginning to crumble a little at the edges. However, what had occurred with the fall of France was far more than the rout of the British Expeditionary Force: it caused the devastating realisation that a mere twenty miles of water stood between survival and defeat. The illusion of Britain’s invincibility vanished like a candle puffed out by the hot, dry wind of war.

  Because the malaise of Britain’s pre-war government under Chamberlain could not be shrugged off in an instant, among Churchill’s first tasks as Prime Minister had been to use the force of his personality – in the House of Commons, in Cabinet, with the High Command, and over the radio to the nation – to instil a degree of confidence that not only would Britain survive, but that she would win.

  Rex Leeper, like many other people in Britain, had gone through a very personal process of psychological trauma, and had become very despondent. Now, through the medium of SO1 and with Churchill’s inspirational words etched onto his soul, Leeper’s confidence returned, and he became determined to use every means at his disposal to hit back at Germany. His letter to Hugh Gaitskell concerning the possibility of exploiting Hitler’s peaceable attempts would lead to an SO1 operation that would undermine Hitler, Hess and Albrecht Haushofer’s plans. It would also, eventually, bring Leeper into conflict with his new boss, Hugh Dalton.

  SO1’s primary role was the promulgation of black propaganda and misinformation to Germany. At the simplest, and least effective, level this could involve the dropping of leaflets over enemy and occupied territory. A more subtle and powerful tool was SO1’s access to the multitude of free radio stations created by the BBC to broadcast to Germany and the occupied countries. However, while Goebbels’ propaganda broadcasts to Britain were fairly crude, SO1 took the decision from the very start that, in the main, the news and information it broadcast to Germany and the occupied territories would be accurate. Avoiding the sort of outrageously false claims endemic of German broadcasts would engender confidence that the BBC broadcasts were objective. But on the back of this genuine service, SO1 slipped in what it called ‘whispers’, elements of black propaganda which suggested that all was not well in Germany, and in so doing created a feeling that incompetence and even lunacy existed in the Nazi hierarchy.

  SO1 also undertook other, much more important work relating to its brief to carry out ‘political warfare’, a new tool in the conduct of war.

  During the late spring of 1941 one of the key protagonists at SO1, Leonard St Clair Ingrams, a former Barings Bank executive, and ‘star operative on the British side of the secret war of wits’,29 presented a report to a meeting of SO1’s hierarchy. What he said revealed much about the behind-the-scenes economo-political investigations SO1 conducted. According to the minutes of the meeting:

  Mr. Ingrams gave the Committee a brief outline of Yugoslavia’s economic resources, saying that her chief importance was because of the lead, copper and chrome which under German control would almost entirely cover Germany’s outstanding requirements �
�� With regards to the Axis oil supply, Mr. Ingrams said that Russia had sent no oil to Germany during March and that the little oil going from Albania to Italy would no doubt be stopped when fighting should break out in Northern Albania.30

  With the help of economic data such as this, SO1 was able to cause very considerable political problems for the Axis. The scope of SO1’s operations is evident in a ‘most secret’ report from November 1941, titled ‘Central Plan of Political Warfare, Winter 1941-42’. In it, the top men of SO1 laid down their objectives over the next six months as:

  To break down the morale of the [Axis] troops in North Africa.

  To hamper their reinforcement.

  To create such uncertainty and unrest in Italy that the Germans must occupy the country in force.

  To bring French North Africa back into the war against Germany.

  To turn out the Vichy government and force the total German occupation of France.

  To get Finland out of the war in such a way that she becomes a liability to Germany.

  To cause Germany to occupy the Balkans in force and to create so much resistance that she is unable to attack Turkey.

  To cause Japan to break away from the Axis and to tread warily in the Pacific.

  To disaffect Spain to a point where she would be a serious distraction to Germany.31

  This was political warfare on a grand scale, and it had the potential to cause vast damage to Germany’s ability to wage war. It also played a considerable role in Britain’s war effort, far exceeding SO1’s public remit of propagating black propaganda.

  Among the staff at Woburn was a small and very select band whose task was to develop ingenious spanners to throw into the German government machinery that would unhinge German strategy and create political situations that would hinder Germany’s ability to defeat Britain.

  Thus, just as SOE was really two organisations, so too was SO1. The outward, acknowledged work of the organisation was to disseminate propaganda. The inner, hidden side of SO1, under the leadership of Rex Leeper, became a home for Britain’s most highly motivated political warfare experts, from which they could conduct a secret political war against the German government.

  These men were not chosen at random. They were in the main either trusted friends, or came by personal recommendation. Nearly all of them had a talent for intelligence work, political intrigue and the art of manipulation – and nearly all also had past associations with Winston Churchill. They had shared his fears about the dangers posed by Nazi Germany in the 1930s, they had shared his determination in Britain’s darkest hour, and they undoubtedly believed it legitimate to use whatever means necessary to win – including engaging the German leadership in bogus peace negotiations.

  The exact origin of the Hitler/Hess deception is today shrouded in mystery. A major reason for this is that not only was SOE disbanded at the end of the war, but almost immediately there was a ‘mysterious’ fire that completely destroyed over 80 per cent of its records. The remaining documents give just a hint about what took place.

  Very often in intelligence an operation originates following a trawl or a flag-waving exercise, to see who responds. Subsequent analysis of the response determines the direction of the project.

  The invaluable clue left by Rex Leeper’s letter to Hugh Gaitskell in mid-August 1940 suggests that the germ of the idea originated then. But Leeper and SO1 were unlikely to have had a specific objective in mind at that time. They undoubtedly knew of Hitler’s desire for a peaceable accord with Britain, and would have received a brief concerning his many attempts to reach such an accord since the summer of 1939. They were also undoubtedly aware that he was likely to go to extraordinary lengths to achieve peace – even to the extent of offering to withdraw German forces from many of the occupied west European countries. They also, after the Weissauer approach, knew that Hitler was attempting to negotiate with the British whilst excluding his own government advisers and Foreign Office, an unheard-of act in modern twentieth-century politics. It was more akin to the era of Bismarck – and Hitler was definitely not a Bismarck, even if he liked to think otherwise.

  The SO1 executive, in conjunction with certain top men within the Foreign Office such as Sir Robert Vansittart, Sir Alexander Cadogan, Ivone Kirkpatrick and Assistant Under-Secretary William Strang – with all of whom Leeper had worked closely for many years – probably all made a significant contribution to the debate on how to use Hitler’s desire for peace to the best effect. It is not possible sixty years after the event, with so few documents surviving, to say with certainty how or when this debate proceeded, or indeed what were the primary objectives at that time.

  But, almost certainly, it was decided to satisfy Hitler’s wish for peaceable negotiation. Given Britain’s desperate situation, it may even have been secretly concluded that opening a covert line of communication to the German government would leave open the back door to an armistice if all else failed – a fallback position if Britain were faced with certain defeat. Most likely, however, it was decided that engaging in secret talks with Hitler would weaken his resolve to see Britain defeated. After all, the Foreign Office and government knew full well that Hitler’s real objectives lay far away to the east, in the Ukraine and Caucasus. Not only was the Karl Haushofer plan for the Greater Germany and Reich outlined in Mein Kampf, but Hitler had even told Freddy Winterbotham, a leading member of SIS, that this was his intention way back in 1934.

  There was however a major problem. SO1 and the Foreign Office were astute enough to realise that if the British government or Foreign Office were suddenly to make peace overtures, Hitler would become suspicious, for he was aware of Winston Churchill’s mettle. Churchill was not a man to balk and sue for peace, especially now that Britain seemed to be just holding her own, safe for the immediate future behind the English Channel, and inflicting heavy loses upon the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain.

  It must therefore have been concluded that if this line was to be pursued, it would have to be done with extreme subtlety. Hitler would have to be offered something he was likely to accept, while at the same time many doors would have to be left open to the British negotiators, from long-term stalling tactics through to outright denial. Hitler would also have to be most carefully ensnared. It would be no good the British Ambassador in Stockholm suddenly making a peace pitch to the German Ambassador. Not only would that be referred back to the wrong people – the German Foreign Ministry, complete with the arrogant Ribbentrop – but the Nazi leadership might smell a rat, or even worse go public, ruining Churchill’s hopes of winning American support.

  It was at this point that a curious coincidence occurred. The participation of Karl and Albrecht Haushofer in Hitler’s foreign policy must have been known of by British Intelligence and the Foreign Office – and if the Foreign Office knew it, then so did Rex Leeper. Given the fact that in the 1920s and early thirties Patrick Roberts had introduced his friend Albrecht Haushofer to all his diplomatic contacts, as well as to many of Britain’s up-and-coming young men, it is entirely possible that among those he introduced him to was his first cousin Walter Roberts, who had gone on to carve out a significant career for himself in the City of London, before becoming SO1’s Establishment and Finance Officer.

  It is therefore highly likely, given SO1’s subsequent control over the Hitler/Hess deception operation, that in mid-August 1940 (i.e. after Leeper’s letter to Gaitskell, but before Hess’s meeting with Karl Haushofer on the last weekend of the month) Walter Roberts visited his aunt Violet Roberts in Oxford, and asked her to write to her old friend Professor Karl Haushofer. He may indeed have taken with him the draft of a passage concerning the horrors of war and her wish for European peace, cleverly concocted by the experts at SO1 to have just the right effect upon the Haushofers, which she was to include in her letter to the Professor.

  This was the chain of events that had led to Karl Haushofer receiving – most unusually in time of war – a letter from his dear old English friend Violet
Roberts, which he was to mention to Hess.

  There was one more element that was unusual about SO1’s secret project. Generally speaking, all intelligence operations are given code names, chosen in such a manner that they do not relate in any way to the project being undertaken. Thus in the war years SOE’s operations received titles such as ‘Agrippa’, ‘Balthazar’, ‘Platypus’ or ‘Foxley’, none of which gave the slightest clue to what they represented.

  But this operation was different. It touched on areas so controversial that it is doubtful if it was ever given an official title, for officially it did not exist. After all, operations like Foxley – a scheme to assassinate Hitler – are one thing. But to manipulate another nation’s genuine peace moves, to engage in diplomatic negotiations in order to gain the upper military hand, is quite another. Peace negotiations are sacrosanct. You do not enter into them with the objective of causing another nation’s downfall – at least, not if there’s a risk of getting caught. This was particularly so given Britain’s situation in 1940–41. What would have happened if the peace discussions became public? The British government could have found itself railroaded not only by American or dominion pressure, but also by a large segment of its own people, into a peace that left Hitler master of Europe. If such negotiations became public, it had the potential to split the nation and government right down the middle.

  Thus the Hitler/Hess affair, it would appear, took place strictly in camera. It was unofficial, unnamed, and its objectives were never consigned to paper. It was planned and implemented by a very select band of men without the knowledge even of their own colleagues, and thus was almost certainly never given an official title.

  Yet how do you refer to something with no name? In the coming months it undoubtedly became the practice to loosely refer to the project under a pseudonym. By a strange quirk of fate, the very parameters of the operation suggested a name: all four of those most closely involved in the negotiations on the German side – Hitler, Hess and the two Haushofers – had a surname that began with the letter ‘H’, as would some of the main British protagonists. The name by which Leeper’s project would be referred to may have first occurred by accident, yet it was quickly adopted as the operational title: the ‘Messrs HHHH operation’.32