Rudolf Hess

Rudolf Hess should not be confused with another prominent Nazi, Rudolf Höß (also spelled Höss or Hoess.)

Speculation on his flight to Britain

Hess's journey to Britain was one of the odder events of World War II. In The Man Who Was M: The Life of Charles Henry Maxwell Knight (ISBN 0-631-13392-5) Anthony Masters claims it was a scheme conceived by British Intelligence officer Ian Fleming (who later gained fame as the creator of James Bond). According to Masters the trap was laid in 1940 after Fleming read about the Anglo-German organization The Link in the intelligence file of its founder Admiral Sir Barry Domvile. Through an agent, Fleming fed Hess disinformation that The Link had been driven underground and was in a position to overthrow Prime Minister, Winston Churchill and negotiate peace, with the Duke of Hamilton and Brandon prepared to be a negotiator.

Related Topics:
World War II - Ian Fleming - James Bond - 1940 - The Link - Admiral Sir Barry Domvile - Prime Minister - Winston Churchill

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Masters also claimed Hess selected the date of his flight after astrologer Ernst Schulter-Strathaus informed him there would be a rare alignment of six planets in the astrological sign of Taurus during the full moon on May 11, 1941, one day after his landing in Scotland. Hess was born with the Sun in Taurus (Taurus being his Sun Sign, also called the Star Sign) and he apparently believed this system of prediction (called electional astrology) would somehow increase his chances for success. The Man Who Was M is the only known source of these claims, which also assert his astrologer may have been bribed by the British Intelligence.

Related Topics:
Astrologer - Ernst Schulter-Strathaus - Planet - Astrological sign - Taurus - Full moon - May 11 - 1941 - Scotland - Sun - Electional astrology

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Related claims were made in The Queen's Lost Uncle, a television program produced by Flame broadcast in November 2003 and March 2005 on Britain's Channel 4. This program reported that according to unspecified "recently released" documents Hess flew to the UK to meet Prince George, Duke of Kent, who had to be rushed from the scene due to Hess's botched arrival. This was supposedly also part of a plot to fool the Nazis into thinking the prince was plotting with other senior figures to overthrow Winston Churchill.

Related Topics:
Television program - 2003 - 2005 - Britain's - Channel 4 - Prince George, Duke of Kent - Nazis - Winston Churchill

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There is circumstantial evidence Hess was lured to Scotland by the British secret service. Violet Roberts, whose nephew, Walter Roberts was a close relative of the Duke of Hamilton and was working in the political intelligence and propaganda branch of the Secret Intelligence Service (SO1/PWE), was friends with Hess' mentor Karl Haushofer and wrote a letter to Haushofer, which Hess took great interest in prior to his flight. Haushofer replied to Violet Roberts, suggesting a post office box in Portugal for further correspondence. The letter was intercepted by a British mail censor (the original note by Roberts and a followup note by Haushofer are missing and only Haushofer's reply is extant). Certain documents Hess brought with him to Britain were sealed until 2017 but when the seal was broken in 1991-92 the documents were missing. Speculation from Edvard Benes, head of the Czech government in exile and his intelligence chief Frantisek Moravetz, who worked with SO1/PWE, was that British Intelligence used Haushofer's reply to Violet Roberts as a means to trap Hess (See Hess: the British Conspiracy, by McBlain and Trow, 2000).

Related Topics:
Violet Roberts - Walter Roberts - Duke of Hamilton - Secret Intelligence Service - Karl Haushofer - Portugal - Edvard Benes - Czech - Frantisek Moravetz

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