When Rudolf Hess said goodbye to his wife he allegedly said he would be back in 30 hours.
Within 30 hours however Hess was declared mentally confused by the Nazi regime, a view the British government would support publicly. Hess had anticipated this and proposed to Hitler a written declaration for the case the initiave would fail.
The issue here is not what exactly happened, only the diplomatic aspects of the event in a long row of other failed attempts to stop the war.
[187] The Hess affair began shortly after
the attempt to establish contact to the British government via Sweden had failed…
Albrecht Haushofer met Hess on September 8, 1940.
Hess enquired with Haushofer how he could establish contact with the British government.
[189] Haushofer adviced the ambassador
Samuel Hoare in Madrid and
Lord Lothian in Washington.
For Lothian this was nothing new. He already knew about German peace proposals as early as middle July 1940 and judged them as
highly satisfactory.
[190] The Times reported: "
Lord Lothian said in front of the House of Lords… that there is no alternative than to reserve for Germany a role in conformity of it’s weight, a nation which normally would be the most powerful state in Europe. An order which does not give to Germany it’s proper role cannot be anything else but artificial."
[193] Hoare and Haushofer agreed to plan a meeting between Halifax and Hoare on the British and Haushofer and Hess on the German side.
These were in reality fake negotiations were conducted with knowledge and approved by Churchill to give the German leadership the illusion that real negotiations were going on. It was Haushofer who adviced Lord Hamilton as contact person and it would be him who Hess 9 months later would try to see.
[194]
Hess was the victim of a British intrige. It’s main purpose was to prevent the formation of a peace faction within British politics.
[195] For the Germans it was difficult to admit that they had followed the British government with
spectacular peace offers, in order to lose the 2nd man in the German state in this adventurous manner to the enemy.
[196]
It is certain that Hess did represent the ideas of Hitler about making peace when he talked with government officials, including Eden.
The British government was in a difficult position these days… many defeats had recently occurred… Like happened in Norway and France, the British army was forced to retreat from Greece; even defeat and evacuation from the Suezcanal was not impossible… Lloyd George was attacking Churchill for the manner in which he was conducting war.
[198] In Britain there existed a
Anglo-German Fellowship, founded in 1936, with more than 4000 members and had links to Lord Hamilton.
[201] In Britain the organisers of the H-H-H-H-operation were clearly overwhelmed by the visit of the high-ranking envoy Hess and for a long time could not decide how to deal with him. Hess had expected that an offer would be made to him. But that did not happen.
Hess did not offer anything else than what had already been proposed earlier: no interests of Germany outside Europe and a British-German alliance.
