Hess was replaced by British intelligence after his death

New research which claims Hitler's deputy was 'replaced' by British intelligence after his death

by Ian Gray
The Glasgow Herald, Monday 18 August 1997

Nearly 60 years after his dramatic flight to Scotland and 10 years after his death in Spandau Prison, the mystery of Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess, has taken a further twist with the findings of new research into the affair. So sensitive are some of the findings, to be published early next year, that the identities of the two authors will not be revealed until the publication date. One is a Scottish-based military historian while the other is a former British intelligence officer living in England.

Their central claim is of a "conspiracy for peace" - a conspiracy that Churchill was aware of and effectively sabotaged. A wide range of characters had roles to play in the affair, albeit some unwittingly. They ranged from the Duke of Kent and the Duke of Hamilton to former Glasgow Lord Provost Patrick Dollan and The Herald's then aviation correspondent, Fred Nancarrow.

The authors also claim it was not the real Hess who died in Spandau, and that the "doppelganger" was, in fact, murdered. The key to their research lies in a box of documents bought at auction in Bonhams in London last year. These documents, the authors say, became the key which opened the door to further previously undisclosed documents.

The official version of the Hess affair is that, on his own initiative, he took off from Augsburg bound for Scotland on a peace mission on May 10 1941. Running short of fuel and finding it difficult to land, he bailed out of his Messerschmitt 110D about 12 miles short of his destination - the estate of the Duke of Hamilton at Dungavel. The pilot first identified himself as Hauptmann Alfred Horn and said he wished to see the Duke of Hamilton. He later identified himself as Rudolf Hess.

Two detectives from Renfrewshire CID requested The Glasgow Herald to provide them with biographical cuttings and photographs of Hess in a bid to ascertain if the mysterious aviator was indeed Hess. Thus The Glasgow Herald, in its issue of Wednesday, May 14, was able to boast: "Biographical records from the files of The Glasgow Herald assisted detectives to identify Hess." Hess, the official version runs, had been under the delusion that the Duke of Hamilton and other prominent members of the British establishment would be willing to discuss peace terms with Germany, and that the common enemy was Bolshevism, particularly in the guise of Stalin's Soviet Union.

The peace proposals were never taken seriously and after periods of incarceration and interrogation at the former Maryhill Barracks, in Glasgow, Buchanan Castle, near Drymen, the Tower of London, and Mytchett Place, near Aldershot, he was confined for the rest of the war at Maindiff Court Hospital, near Abergavenny. He was later sentenced at Nuremberg to life imprisonment for war crimes. Many investigators over the years have questioned this version - a version backed up by what few official papers on the affair respective Governments since the end of the war have chosen to release.

One theory, held by freelance journalist and author Tom McArthur and Dr Peter Waddell, senior lecturer in mechanical engineering at Strathclyde University, is that the real Rudolf Hess may have been kidnapped by Special Operation Executive (SOE) agents, taken to a secret location in. Scotland, relentlessly interrogated, and may subsequently have been executed. A doppelganger, or double, may have been planted by SOE in a bid to demoralise and confuse the Nazi leadership.

Dr Hugh Thomas, who as a consultant surgeon in the Royal Army Medical Corps from 1970 to 1978, looked after Prisoner No.7 in Spandau, has consistently claimed he was not the real Hess. The new research, however, adds a confusing twist to the doppelganger theory. The authors claim that it was indeed the real Hess who landed in Scotland, but he subsequently died, and was "replaced" by British intelligence with a doppelganger.

It was essential to maintain the pretence that Hess was still alive, the authors argue, because of fears that should the Nazis suspect he had been ill-treated during his confinement or even deliberately been murdered, this would have an adverse effect on the treatment meted out to captured British officers. More importantly, British intelligence was aware the Nazi leadership had been thrown into confusion with Hess's defection. There was even "black propaganda" to the effect that, should Hitler be deposed, Hess would take over the reins of power in a post-war Germany.

It has never been satisfactorily explained, however, who this mysterious "double" was. Nor has it been satisfactorily explained why the fiction had to be maintained right up until the death of Prisoner No.7 in Spandau 10 years ago. The box of documents bought at auction by the authors, along with Hess's Iron Cross, had been the property of the late Daniel McBride, a regular soldier who had been at Floors Farm, near Eaglesham, when Hess was first taken into custody. McBride, it appears, had taken a keen interest in the Hess affair and had carried out his own, lone, research.

THE authors have identified McBride in a wartime photograph in The Herald picture archives. It shows him and a group of non-regulars standing around the wreckage of Hess's aircraft. On this original photograph is the censor's instruction to delete McBride's cap badge -which would have identified his unit - from the picture.

The authors claim that the documents have led to evidence that not only was Churchill aware of the Hess flight 24 hours before he took off - through spies working at the Messerschmitt plant at Augsburg - but that the Duke of Kent and the Duke of Buchanan were among a party waiting at the Duke of Hamilton's Dungavel estate to receive Hess, having spent the previous evening at Balmoral. The authors have interviewed a woman who served with the ATS and was at Dungavel on the night of May 10, 1941. She claims the landing lights at the Dungavel airstrip were switched on, ready to receive an incoming aircraft, but later switched off.

The authors say Hess had begun his descent, "lining up" the distant brightly lit strip. The lights suddenly went off. Hess, low on fuel, rapidly began to climb until he achieved height enough to allow him to bale out of his aircraft. He "stood" it on its tail, and dropped from the cockpit. Churchill, the authors say, would have no truck with proposals for peace. The Hess mission managed to "smoke out" the "peace conspirators".

The Duke of Buccleuch was later put under virtual "house arrest" for the remainder of the war, while the Duke of Kent was killed in a mysterious air crash in Caithness in August 1942. Hess, the authors say, may also have been on this flight. Theories have abounded over the years as to the cause the crash of the Sunderland aircraft, with some claims that the flight may have been deliberately sabotaged.

The official records hold that the Duke, who was serving in the RAF as a group captain in the welfare branch, was en route to Iceland. The authors contend, however, that the destination was actually Sweden, where, through the offices of a Swedish diplomat, a plot had been hatched for the Germans to return Poland - apart from Silesia - to the Poles and place the anti-Bolshevik Duke of Kent on the Polish throne.

The Polish General Sikorsky, who was also killed in a mysterious air crash - off Gibraltar - in 1943 was a party to this plot, the researchers claim. They have also uncovered evidence that the then Glasgow Lord Provost, Sir Patrick Dollan - a friend of Sikorsky - had commissioned Glasgow Herald aviation correspondent Fred Nancarrow to write a revised version of a book he had written in 1941 on 501 Squadron. The new book was to incorporate details of the Hess and Kent affiliation.

Nancarrow, before the book could be published, died in yet another mysterious air accident, in September 1942, when the Sunderland aircraft he was in crashed after apparently running out of fuel off Tiree. The authors have access to a note written by Sir Patrick commenting on Nancarrow's unfinished manuscript. It reads: "The time will come when the full story can be told. Fred Nancarrow has written this at my request - he has done his job well."

The Duke of Buccleuch's chauffeur and a handyman, meanwhile, were both later killed in a road accident. The authors of the new research, while claiming to have convincing evidence that the Hess sentenced at Nuremberg was not the real Hess, and was in fact murdered, themselves admit to confusion over the doppelganger theory.

Who was this "man who never was" - the man at the centre of a "conspiracy for peace"? Only further research may reveal the truth.

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