The Hitler–Hess Deception

by Martin Allen

  Full of contrition, Churchill responded: ‘Dear Edward, I had a spasm of fear. It was a deadly thought in this present atmosphere of frustration. You did not foresee this. Forgive me. W.’10

  Churchill had certainly misunderstood the Foreign Secretary’s motives, for as Halifax was later to annotate on that scrap of Downing Street headed notepaper: ‘Exchange of notes with Winston C. after I had suggested one way to gain time was to delude the Germans by Peace Talks!’11 (Author’s italics.) The key word here is ‘delude’, for despite his pedigree as an appeaser under Chamberlain, Halifax was no longer under any illusion about the very considerable dangers presented by a victorious German army at loose on a continent aflame with war. However, he was enough of a professional politician not to allow gut instinct to rule his head. There were after all many advantages to playing the diplomatic game against Germany, even if it would only be a short-term measure.

  Time was of the essence, and the whole Cabinet realised this, most of all Churchill. The most dangerous time for Britain was during the middle two quarters of every year – April to September, the so-called ‘fighting seasons’ – and she had only just managed to survive the fighting season of 1940. It was odds-on that Britain would not survive 1941 unless some extraordinary change in fortunes occurred.

  By the autumn of 1940, Britain was like a severely knocked-about boxer, hanging on for the bell, supported only by the ropes. What she needed was either a second front to split the Axis war effort, or a powerful ally – neither of which she had any immediate prospect of attaining. Despite this, a small number of individuals within the inner circle of the War Cabinet and SO1 had some ideas on how they were going to resolve their problems. The letter from Violet Roberts to Professor Karl Haushofer was the opening gambit in a deadly game which they had to win in order to survive.

  In themselves, the contents of Albrecht Haushofer’s letter to the Duke of Hamilton were fairly mundane, mentioning his regret and sorrow at the coming of war. However, Haushofer’s comments specifically drew attention to his ability to travel for a meeting, and this clearly indicated to SO1 that their labours were bearing fruit.

  It is certain that SO1 used the Haushofers as a medium to get to the German leadership, but to begin with they had little means of knowing whether the proffered bait had been taken. They knew, after the Nazi peaceable attempts of 1939 and 1940, that there was an earnest desire by the German leadership to end the war in the west. However, there was no guarantee that either of the Haushofers were still in favour with the Nazi regime, or that they remained of sufficient importance to have access to Hitler. The letter from Albrecht to the Duke of Hamilton, therefore, revealed a great deal. It made clear that the Haushofers had retained their importance, that they had kept their friendship with Hess, and through Hess they had access to Hitler.

  The first sign that SO1’s plot was beginning to make headway occurred in Spain just a few weeks later, when an approach was made to Sir Samuel Hoare from a most unexpected quarter. It was, however, one that was so eminent that it demonstrated the very real intent of the German leadership to cut a deal with the British. Hoare was visited by the Papal Nuncio in Madrid, who informed him that ‘he had been requested to communicate the following peace offer on behalf of the German government representative the Ambassador met last July at the home of Beigbeder (APA [Aussenpolitisches Amt] representative Haushofer), when the last round of peace offers were made’.12

  Juan Beigbeder y Atienza had been the Spanish Foreign Minister until October 1940, but it is known that Sam Hoare continued to visit him socially even after his official capacity had ended. Furthermore, the reference to the fact that Hoare had met the Aussenpolitisches Amt representative the previous July indicates that the British Ambassador already had a track record in the negotiation process – July 1940 was the time when the Duke of Windsor had been making his private pitch for peace. Indeed, this meeting may have been the reason Albrecht Haushofer proposed to Hess on 8 September that they might use Hoare. This is not to suggest that Sam Hoare was disloyal. He would to write secretly to Anthony Eden within days of Hess’s flight to Britain in May 1941: ‘I have just written Winston a short personal note in view of the fact that he took so much interest last year in agreeing to our secret plans … I am enclosing a curious and very secret note that has just been passed to me by Beigbeder. The suggestions in it bear a remarkable resemblance to what I imagine Hess has been saying in England.’13

  Thus Sir Samuel Hoare would be a key protagonist in any peace negotiations. He was a man the German leadership suspected of divided loyalties, as they believed was indicated by his banishment by Churchill. They believed he was keen for peace, and perhaps sympathetic to the German cause, given his record of appeasement and promulgation of the Hoare–Laval pact. Yet it is now known that Hoare was unquestionably loyal, otherwise Churchill would not have placed him in a position of such importance. The Germans, for all their expert analysis, failed to discern the important fact that Sir Samuel Hoare was actually Churchill’s man through and through.

  Sam Hoare was not adrift in neutral Spain all on his own. His was an important mission, and he needed assistance. Not the sort of assistance that could be rendered by a low-echelon diplomat; rather he needed a man who knew something of high deceit and subterfuge, a man capable of playing his cards close to his chest. Thus Hoare was attended during his meeting with the Papal Nuncio by his Naval Attaché, Captain Gareth Alan Hillgarth, who took copious notes on all that the Pope’s Ambassador said, and subsequently typed up the report on the meeting personally.

  Captain Gareth Alan Hillgarth is a fascinating personality, and his support for Hoare was very important indeed. Apart from being Naval Attaché at the British Embassy in Madrid, the bushy-eyebrowed, fiercely patriotic forty-year-old Hillgarth was the top SOE man in the Iberian Peninsula, and in the months to come he would participate not only in special secret work for SO1 and Sam Hoare, but also in activities for SO2 under the code name of agent ‘YN’.14

  Hillgarth had experience of carrying out extremely important intelligence work. He also had another important quality that made him a natural to assist Hoare’s more covert activities.

  In 1936, Hillgarth, serving as acting Vice-Consul in Majorca, met and later became firm friends with Winston Churchill. With the coming of war, this friendship and trust grew considerably, and Churchill entrusted Hillgarth with some extremely delicate covert operations involving millions of pounds paid to leading members of Franco’s military regime to ensure that the Germans did not gain the upper hand in the Iberian Peninsula. Hillgarth’s work undoubtedly helped prevent Franco from taking the decision to join the Axis. His importance is suggested by the fact that on his infrequent trips back to Britain he was one of the very few diplomatic corps attachés who were invited to stay at Chequers with the Prime Minister.15

  Hillgarth’s contribution to Sam Hoare’s deception work was substantial, and his role in other covert activities so significant that Churchill once commented to Hoare, ‘I find Hillgarth a great prop.’16 After the war Hillgarth continued to be important to Churchill. He remained in touch with his old intelligence contacts, and sent Churchill regular reports on defence and intelligence affairs based on information he picked up in Whitehall. When Hillgarth died in 1978 his obituary described him as Churchill’s protégé and favourite intelligence officer, and quoted Sam Hoare’s encomium to him as ‘the embodiment of drive’ who gave Britain vital contacts in wartime Spain.17

  Hillgarth was in situ at the Madrid Embassy and, being close to Churchill, he was trusted. It was to be a characteristic of this operation that everyone concerned with it was connected by close friendship. It was too important a matter to risk trusting ‘outsiders’.

  Thursday, 14 November 1940, when Sir Samuel Hoare met with the Papal Nuncio to discuss the sensitive subject of peace, was a bright and balmy autumn day in Madrid. The meeting undoubtedly took place behind closed doors in absolute confidentiality, either at Beigbeder’s hom
e or, more likely, at Hoare’s private residence, rather than the Embassy.

  The Papal Nuncio informed the British Ambassador of ‘the German government’s sincere wish to end the hostilities’. He went on say something which would have caused Hoare to prick up his ears – that he had been requested to hand over ‘the following details for transmission to a party who would be willing to act upon them’.

  This was important, for the Nuncio specifically did not mention the British government. His turn of phrase was undoubtedly designed to imply that the German leadership was prepared to negotiate with a party other than the British government, if that was what was required to attain peace.

  This was something new. All previous peaceable attempts had been specifically directed towards the British government, but this one was being openly proffered to a different party. This suggested that Hitler had finally given up any notion of negotiating with Churchill or the incumbent government, and was now prepared to deal with an independent faction. Sam Hoare would immediately have realised that this was extremely important, for there is no point in negotiating peace with a party not in power, unless you believe that party will be in power when the time comes to enact the treaty under discussion.

  Captain Hillgarth recorded that the Papal Nuncio went on to detail the German peace terms he had been asked to pass on as follows:

  (1) A confidential meeting as soon as possible in Switzerland between the representatives who are prepared to negotiate, to arrange a more formal conference at a later date.

  (2) Once the conference details have been agreed, then a meeting to take place between the parties to discuss Poland, guarantees, non-aggression pacts, disarmament, colonies, frontiers, the transfer of populations, and an end to hostilities.

  The views of the German government on the subjects detailed in (2) were as follows:-

  [1] The negotiating parties to meet on neutral territory under the stewardship of a neutral state, such as Switzerland or the United States of America.

  [2] Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, and France would be independent free states, able to choose their own constitution and government; but opposition to Germany must be excluded and assurances of non-retaliation given. Germany would withdraw her military forces, would not claim military concessions in these countries, and is prepared to negotiate a form of reparation for damage inflicted during conquest.

  [3] All aggressive weapons to be destroyed and then armed forces reduced to correspond with the economic and strategic requirements of each country.

  [4] Germany requests a return of her former colonies but would advance no other territorial claims. South-West Africa might not be claimed. Germany might consider the payment of an indemnity for improvements effected in the colonies since 1918, and the purchase of property from present owners who might desire to leave.

  [5] The political independence and national identity of ‘a Polish State’ to be restored, but the territory occupied by the Soviet Union is to be excluded from discussions. Czechoslovakia would not be prevented from developing her national character, but is to remain under the protection of the Reich.

  [6] Greater European economic solidarity should be pursued, and the solution of important economic questions solved by negotiation and national European agreement.18

  Finally, the Nuncio ended his pitch for peace by telling Sam Hoare something that revealed a curious change in Hitler’s stance. He explained that the ‘APA representative’, that is Albrecht Haushofer, had told him that ‘Hitler’s desire for peace was based on the principle that he wished there to be “no victor or vanquished” stigma applied to any of the negotiating parties’, and that if an amicable peace agreement were achieved, it would ‘have to be validated by a plebiscite in all countries affected by an agreement’.19

  The nature of what was on offer must have left SO1 gasping at the concessions Hitler was prepared to make to attain peace with Britain. This was not even a deal that had been worked out through hard negotiation. This whole plethora of remarkable concessions was just Hitler’s opening gambit, the laying of his cards on the table in order to tempt a political faction in Britain to negotiate with him.

  From Churchill’s point of view, nothing could have been more dangerous. Everyone was now used to Hitler’s bully-boy tactics, the threats of dire military consequences if he did not get what he wanted. Such a set of concessions was a remarkable development, which had the potential to bring Britain’s war effort to a shuddering halt if it ever became public. That could not be allowed to happen. Hillgarth’s report back to London concluded that the Nuncio had informed Hoare ‘that a negotiated conclusion to the European conflict would have the full support of his Holiness the Pope, and that he had been informed that the Vatican would be willing to participate if further mediation were required’.20

  What had begun as a subtle trawl – a flag-waving exercise – by a few men at SO1 had suddenly become an extremely deadly game indeed. It was one thing to tentatively suggest that Britain might be able to exploit Hitler’s desire for peace, but the last thing anyone had expected was that the German Führer would respond by making an offer so good that it left the majority of Britain’s official war aims hollow. What would happen if the governments in exile of Norway, Holland, Belgium and France were to discover that Hitler was offering to withdraw German forces from their countries and, what was more, intimating that he was prepared to pay for the damage that had occurred during the invasion? It was an extremely difficult and dangerous call for Churchill.

  If Hitler had been careful about preserving absolute secrecy in Germany concerning Dr Weissauer’s initiative, for fear of appearing weak before his own people, then this new initiative saw him putting his head firmly in the lion’s mouth. It must have been very tempting for SO1 and Britain’s top politicians at the centre of this intrigue to firmly close the lion’s jaws, using this peace offer to destroy Hitler’s credibility in Germany. How could Hitler justify the war to the German people if they ever discovered that he himself was secretly negotiating to give virtually everything away?

  However, the Hitler-Hess-Haushofer peace offer was also a double-edged sword for the British. SO1 and Churchill could not use it for propaganda purposes for fear that sizeable sections of the Allied governments – and of the British government too – might demand that the terms be seriously considered, and perhaps even accepted.

  Although Hitler’s peace offer through the auspices of Dr Weissauer had been put before the dominions’ governments for consideration (albeit with Churchill’s recommendation that it be rejected), there is absolutely no record of the Hitler–Hess–Haushofer – the Messrs H – peace initiative ever being put before anybody. It was just too dangerous to tell anyone about.

  This situation existed because Churchill had a major problem. At the time of the Papal Nuncio’s visit to Samuel Hoare in November 1940, there were clear signs that Britain was losing the war, and some members of the government were beginning to question the sanity of continuing to fight. Churchill knew that if he did but once flinch, did but once intimate that perhaps there might be a way to negotiate an amicable conclusion to the conflict with Germany, it would be the end. There would be no hope of persuading the frightened men of Westminster to declare war again if Hitler’s offers proved illusory.

  Churchill knew from his intelligence briefings that there was no sign of the German war machine slowing down; indeed, the German government was making a sizeable effort to consolidate much of Europe under German politico-economic dominance. What would happen if Britain concluded a peace, then within a few months found herself facing a threat from Germany once again? It was too great a risk to take.

  Churchill knew that Britain only needed to hang on, not to flinch either politically or militarily, until Hitler’s instinct to attack Russia came to the fore. Britain needed to keep her nerve until the United States was dragged into the war, and then the Allies would ultimately win. Churchill knew he did riot need to take the terrible risk of peace now,
when the prospect of overall victory beckoned tantalisingly at some time in the not so distant future.

  In the autumn of 1940 the British government’s concern was not just that Britain’s forces were being almost constantly defeated by the Axis in every military campaign they fought, but that Germany was obtaining substantial economic resources – machine parts, oil, petrol and food – from the Soviet Union. If it had been the case that Russia merely presented a lurking, but neutral, menace in the east, the turning of Germany on Russia would have been an unsavoury act, advantageous to Britain only in that Russia would become a bottomless pit into which Hitler would have to pour men, materiel and resources. However, Russia was not merely sitting on the sidelines of the conflict. She was providing considerable aid to the German war machine, and this legitimised her as a target. In February 1940, Germany had signed an economic treaty with the Soviet Union in which the Russians agreed to provide resources to the Reich in exchange for hard cash. These resources were so large that in the autumn of 1940 Karl Schnurre, head of Division W6 of the Economic Policy Department of the German Foreign Ministry, reported to Ribbentrop that:

  The supplies from the Russians have heretofore been a very substantial prop to the German war economy. Since the new economic treaties went into effect [earlier this year], Russia has supplied over 300 million Reichsmarks’ worth of raw materials, roughly 100 million Reichsmarks of which was in grain … Our sole economic connection with Iran, Afghanistan, Manchukuo, China, Japan and, beyond that, with South America, is the route across Russia, which is being used to an increasing extent for German raw material imports (soybeans from Manchukuo).21