The Hitler–Hess Deception

by Martin Allen

  The Duke of Buccleuch’s letter to Butler had caused concern at the Foreign Office. Although ostensibly querying a peace proposal emanating from von Hassell through the auspices of the dubious Mr Bryans, it was evident that Buccleuch had something else on his mind. In a memorandum written the following day, Butler commented to Cadogan that ‘the Duke’s native shrewdness on certain matters comes out [in] the red [marked] portion’.17

  What Butler was referring to was the fact that despite Buccleuch being a strong proponent of a peaceable accord if one could be found, he had nevertheless divined for himself that there were greater politico-international affairs afoot than Britain holding its own against Germany militarily, for he had written: ‘Latest reports if correct indicate a much larger objective south and east via Bulgaria [i.e. Greece, Anatolia and thence the Middle East]. Can Moscow be expected to disclose any less favourable attitude to Berlin if and while USA are helping us to equalise with Germany?’18

  Several days later Buccleuch sent another letter to Butler, again on the subject of peace, but on this occasion he was more open. He was subtly attempting to impart that despite past differences, and his ‘closer associations than is customary with men of German nationality’, he was still loyal to Britain. He meaningfully stated: ‘I regret that, however much some of your colleagues may have considered me a nuisance, they should regard me with suspicion rather than as a friend and ally. Even now some find it desirable to have me watched, as far as I can see more with the intention of causing me trouble than of finding fault.’19 It was clear that Buccleuch was looking for a way back into the circles of power, and was suggesting that he could make a valuable contribution to Britain’s efforts to survive.

  There was, however, a curious circumstance connected to Buccleuch’s situation. When he had lost his post as Lord Steward of the Royal Household in 1940, the man who replaced him was none other than Winston Churchill’s friend the Duke of Hamilton. This means that there was an important additional reason why Albrecht Haushofer had nominated Hamilton as the man he should contact to negotiate peace. Hamilton was chosen not only because of his friendship with both Haushofer and Churchill, but because of his position close to King George VI. This made him the ideal man to contact, as he would give Haushofer (and Hitler and Hess) a conduit directly into Buckingham Palace itself. There was thus an added constitutional aspect to the German decision to write via Violet Roberts to the Duke of Hamilton.

  However, perhaps the most interesting information William Strang imparted to Sir Alexander Cadogan was the Duke of Kent’s reason for involving the Duke of Buccleuch, rather than some other eminent or trusted friend. Strang’s attention had been aroused when Kent commented that Buccleuch had previously ‘met the visiting gentleman concerned’20 – the head of AO, Ernst Bohle.

  Ernst Wilhelm Bohle had very curious origins for a man destined to lead one of the Nazi Party’s top foreign affairs organisations. The thirty-eight-year-old head of Auslandsorganisation, with responsibility for the political well-being of ethnic Germans living overseas, had been born in Bradford, Yorkshire, in 1903. In early childhood his parents had emigrated to South Africa, where the young Ernst had gone to the South African College High School in Cape Town. In 1920 his father had paid for Ernst to attend the University of Cologne, where he studied economics and political science.21 Bohle was therefore very much of the same generation as Albrecht Haushofer. He too had viewed the horrors of the Great War from the security of youth, being too young to be called up to fight. However, had he been a few years older, he would have found himself on the British side, not the German, for Ernst Bohle was, until 1937, a British citizen.

  Having gained his doctorate in Commerce in 1923, Bohle’s early career had been in the import and export business, based first in Rotterdam and then in Hamburg. In 1931 he had seen an advertisement in a newspaper for a post within the Nazi Party’s new foreign policy office. He had applied, been accepted – and the rest, as they say, is history. Bohle thus had a common background with Hess. They were both Auslanders by birth, they had both begun their careers in commerce, and had both worked in the import trade in Hamburg. As a result the two got on very well together, often sharing jokes about past experiences that others in the Nazi Party were unable to understand. By 1932 Bohle was heading the small but increasingly important Auslandsorganisation, where he remained for the next ten years, nine of them under one superior – Rudolf Hess.

  In 1937 Ernst Bohle’s career within the Nazi Party had blossomed. As a result of his expertise in the field of foreign relations, with agents from Finland to Shanghai, he was inducted into the German Foreign Ministry, becoming a ‘Secretary of State in the Foreign Office’ on 30 January 1937.22 Later that year he visited London, with the objective of furthering a long-term Anglo–German peaceable accord. He was later to comment: ‘I personally didn’t believe in war, and I made that pretty public in my speech in London in 1937.’23

  While Bohle was in London he entered into the social circuit, meeting and dining with Britain’s high and mighty, no doubt dropping a confidential word here and there aimed at furthering the cause of Anglo–German peace and understanding, tempered of course with the occasional subtle reference to the virtues of National Socialism. This was, after all, the raison d’être for his visit.

  Bohle made some interesting friends in Britain in 1937, one of whom invited him to stay for an extended weekend at his country home in Dumfriesshire. His name was the Duke of Buccleuch, and his home was Drumlanrig Castle – a mere twenty miles from Dungavel House, Rudolf Hess’s destination on the night of 10 May 1941.

  While this cannot be attributed to anything more than a curious coincidence, a certain level of synchronicity (as theorised by Jung) may well have taken place. When William Strang briefed the Duke of Kent on 25 April 1941, asking if he would participate in a meeting with Ernst Bohle, he may have intimated that the meeting was to take place at the Duke of Hamilton’s home, Dungavel House, which possessed a very good airstrip. The Duke of Kent would have known that Buccleuch’s country home was nearby, and this may have triggered his memory that Buccleuch knew Bohle – hence his request that Buccleuch accompany him.

  Indeed, the synchronicity may have been twofold, as the German suggestion of Bohle as the emissary could have been triggered by something along the same lines. Hitler, Hess and Haushofer may well have believed that Bohle’s origins would make him more acceptable as an emissary to the British. Hitler even suggested in private that Bohle might be Germany’s next Ambassador to London, should peace result from an Anglo–German armistice.24

  The desperate need for the Duke of Kent’s participation in the proposed meeting left SO1 and Whitehall with no choice regarding the Duke of Buccleuch’s involvement, and William Strang wrote to Cadogan on 28 April: ‘I agreed in principle … as I felt he [Kent] might not … participate otherwise. Perhaps you could let me know when it will be convenient for you to meet with HRH [Kent], and I shall then make the necessary arrangements.’25

  Within a very few days, a brief annotation was scrawled in the margin of Strang’s letter which indicated who the protagonists behind the request to Kent really were: ‘I agree.’26 It was initialled ‘RL’ – Rex Leeper.

  On the same day William Strang wrote his memorandum to Cadogan, setting in motion the chain of events that would culminate at Dungavel House in less than twelve days’ time, Albrecht Haushofer was in Switzerland working towards the same objective. Like Strang, Haushofer believed he was helping to arrange a meeting between an eminent British personage and the head of the Auslands-organisation, Ernst Bohle. The fact that both sides would prove so devastatingly mistaken about who would actually arrive in Scotland is one of the strangest elements of this whole strange story.

  On the bright and sunny morning of Monday, 28 April 1941, Albrecht Haushofer travelled to his appointment in Geneva with the Vice-President of the International Red Cross, Carl Burckhardt. The two were old acquaintances, and over the years their relationship had g
rown to encompass Rudolf Hess. The Deputy-Führer had been instrumental in recommending Burckhardt for the post of High Commissioner to the port of Danzig in 1937.27 That appointment had paved the way for Burckhardt’s entry into the senior management of the Red Cross. Unlike many who in post-war Europe would have no hope of an eminent career because of their connections with the Nazis, Carl Burckhardt’s work for the International Red Cross would not go unrecognised, and he would one day become its President.

  Burckhardt had been contacted earlier that spring by Ilse von Hassell, another old friend of Albrecht Haushofer’s, who told him that Haushofer would shortly be coming to see him, ‘ostensibly for Hess’. Burckhardt’s position on the fringe of neutrality, as a leading official of the Red Cross, had already resulted in an approach from an agent of Heinrich Himmler, who had come to him to find out whether England would be prepared to make peace with Himmler instead of Hitler.28 Thus, while the British had Sir Samuel Hoare sitting in neutral territory, in an ideal position to act as a conduit to the enemy, the Nazi leadership perceived Carl Burckhardt in the same light. But when Haushofer arrived in Geneva on 28 April, he found Burckhardt terrified that his role as an intermediary would be publicly exposed.29

  In the late spring of 1941, Carl Burckhardt was in a dilemma. As a prominent man in neutral territory, connected to a worldwide-recognised body in the International Red Cross, he had found himself being increasingly petitioned by top Nazis pursuing agendas of their own. However, the petitions had not emanated only from the German side. In June 1940 Burckhardt had been contacted by Rab Butler, who wished to open a line of communication to Prince Max Hohenlohe (at that time a member of Himmler’s circle) in the hope of making contacts with the German hierarchy in pursuit of peace.30 It was understood by all concerned that Butler was closely associated with Lord Halifax – another strand which was later exploited by SO1 to make the German leadership believe that Halifax would act against Churchill.

  To the Nazis, all the facts appeared to suggest that a political faction in Britain was poised to usurp power from Churchill constitutionally. The problem for the Germans lay in how to ignite the blue touchpaper of action, when the British seemed inclined to inactivity, protracted negotiation and ever more debate. It was a situation that could not persist.

  The details of what Albrecht Haushofer and Burckhardt talked about on 28 April have never been fully disclosed. However, Haushofer subsequently reported that they had discussed the peace soundings, and that Burckhardt revealed that he had recently been contacted by ‘a person well known and respected in London … [who] had in a rather long conversation expressed the wish of important English circles for an examination of the possibilities for peace’.31 Furthermore, Haushofer commented, Burckhardt had said that his impression was that the peaceable faction in Britain had only three main areas of interest: south-eastern Europe, an end to the occupation of the western European states, and the colonial question.

  However, there was more to the Haushofer–Burckhardt discussion than Albrecht Haushofer reported. Shortly after the end of the war, in an interview with journalist Erica Mann, Karl Haushofer revealed that Burckhardt had agreed to Albrecht’s request that he act as an intermediary between Rudolf Hess and Sam Hoare at a meeting proposed for the latter half of May 1941. That meeting, it was revealed, was to take place at an isolated spot – an abandoned tennis court – near Madrid.32

  Besides arranging Carl Burckhardt’s involvement, Albrecht Haushofer’s trip to Switzerland was to have another important, if less easily recognised, consequence. It took him away from the centre of intrigue for a crucial few days, during which he missed vital clues that might have set alarm bells ringing in his brain – clues which indicated that the delicate negotiations were about to go disastrously wrong; and that the emissary to the British was not going to be Ernst Bohle.

  The Haushofers continued to meet with Rudolf Hess, who, unbeknownst to them, was putting the last arrangements in place for what he believed would be the biggest political coup of his career, a coup that would see him establish his credentials as a prominent politician once and for all.

  Hess’s position within the Nazi hierarchy had been gradually weakening ever since the war had started, and the whispered jokes about him as an old worrier, and about his earnest work ethic, had not gone unnoticed. Now, however, he saw a chance to assure his political ascendancy. He had worked long and hard with Hitler to bring about a politico-diplomatic coup that would see Germany freed of the unwanted war with Britain. The Führer’s image as a political miracle-worker would be restored, and at his right hand would be his loyal Deputy.

  Many leading members of the Nazi Party had secretly been in despair at the prospect of total war with Britain, and Hitler’s reputation as the infallible and all-seeing Führer had taken a major dent. The fall of France had rectified that somewhat, but it would mean nothing if it led to war without end against the British. Now, however, Hitler had the chance to pull off a dramatic coup in the style of his great days – Germany’s economic restoration, the reoccupation of the Rhineland, the Austrian Anschluss, his political ascendancy over Europe’s leaders during the Sudeten crisis. Hess must have believed that his part in this success would enable him to eclipse rivals like Ribbentrop, Himmler, Göring and Goebbels. Most important of all, Hitler would privately know exactly who had been largely responsible for delivering him his long-sought peace with Britain.

  But Rudolf Hess was about to allow personal ambition to cloud his judgement. Hess had always been mightily impressed by Neville Chamberlain’s waving the piece of paper which guaranteed ‘peace in our time’ on his return from Munich in 1938. The guarantee had of course turned out to be nothing of the sort, but Hess still regarded Chamberlain’s performance as a wonderful public–relations coup. As Ernst Bohle would later say: ‘That the Prime Minister … should come over, was absolutely unheard of.’33

  Despite the likelihood that Hess’s personal ambitions were the primary factor behind his taking Bohle’s place on the mission to Scotland, the fact that Bohle himself was never told he was to fly to Britain suggests that Hitler and Hess had always secretly planned for Hess to meet the ‘close representative’ of Britain’s head of state. There may also be another reason, apart from self-seeking opportunism, for Hess’s decision to fly to Britain on 10 May 1941.

  After all their years together, Hitler and Hess’s association went beyond mere political alliance. Hess was one of the handful of people Hitler considered a friend. He was, as Churchill would later comment, one of the few men ‘capable of understanding Hitler’s inner mind – his hatred of Soviet Russia, his lust to destroy Bolshevism, his admiration for Britain and earnest wish to be friends with the British Empire … no one knew Hitler better or saw him more often in his unguarded moments’.34

  The two men had been plotting and scheming their way through the tortuous complexities of trying to negotiate a peace with Britain since the early autumn of 1940. All Hitler’s previous attempts had failed abysmally. However, as the launch date for Barbarossa crept ever closer, his worries about committing Germany to a two-front war mounted. He thus not only needed peace with Britain, he needed it quickly. Yet apart from Sam Hoare’s attendance at covert meetings in Spain and the occasional anti-Churchill stands being taken in the House of Commons, there was no sign of the Hoare–Halifax plot bearing fruit, or of Churchill’s premiership being in any danger. Then, in the first week of May 1941, Hitler and Hess were given heart when Reuters suddenly began to report that Churchill was fighting for his political survival. His conduct of the war had been challenged in the House of Commons, and he was facing a vote of confidence.

  It may well be, therefore, that in demanding a meeting with an eminent Briton Hitler was calling the British bluff. If this was the case, it is likely that the decision to send Hess in Bohle’s stead was in part taken so that the Deputy-Führer of the German Reich could look deep into the eyes of the British emissaries and discern if all this plot and intrigue was for r
eal, or was a terrible deception.

  Hess must have realised that if it was a deception, he would be placing himself in great jeopardy. However, if everything went well, and he found that the Hoare–Halifax faction did indeed have constitutional support, the political rewards for him would be enormous. He may therefore have planned his trip to Britain blind to the possibilities of failure, focused solely on the prestige that would accrue to him as the man who brought peace.

  Saturday, 10 May 1941, the date of the Deputy-Führers mysterious arrival in Scotland, was the culmination of months of ever–increasing activity, beginning in the late summer of 1940 with the Haushofer–Violet Roberts correspondence. Now, in the first days of May 1941, the success of these negotiations depended on Rudolf Hess and Albrecht Haushofer’s almost daily attention, right up to the moment the Deputy-Führer boarded his plane and departed for Britain.

  A week prior to Hess’s flight, the Deputy-Führer’s schedule became increasingly complicated. He had already arranged that on that weekend (his last as a free man, although he didn’t know it) he would fly to Berlin from his home in Munich to attend a special meeting of the Reichstag. However, he delayed his departure to have a private telephone conversation with Karl Haushofer, who had important news concerning his son Albrecht’s latest efforts in Switzerland.