Forbidden History - The Flight of Rudolf Hess

Episode Date: April 15, 2025

In 1941, Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy, embarked on a mysterious solo flight to Scotland in an unauthorised bid for peace. What drove him? Was he a rogue idealist, or was this part of a deeper plot? In this episode we unpack the strange mission, the unanswered questions surrounding his decades in Spandau Prison, and his subsequent controversial death. Cast List: James Douglas-Hamilton: The Duke of Hamilton’s Son  Nigel Jones: Author & Historian  Roger Moorhouse: Author & Historian  Prof. Manfred Goertemaker: Historian, University of Potsdam Frank McDonough: Author & Historian of the Third Reich  Dr Linda Papadopoulos: Psychologist  Andreas Mix: Memorium Nuremberg Trials Eric Meyers: Narrator Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Forbidden History Podcast. This program is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It contains mature adult themes. Listener discretion is advised. In 1941, Hitler's Deputy Fuhrer, Rudolf Hess, made a solo flight to Britain during the height of World War II. To this day, it remains one of the most mysterious events of the war. There is some evidence that MI6 were... aware he was manipulated and encouraged to make the flight.

Just who was Hess intending to meet? But there were a group of people call the appeasers. They were prepared to support the Nazis. And was his death in 1987 really a suicide? Or was it, as the independent autopsy suggested, a murder? So they did have reasons for suggesting that he had been murdered. On the 11th of May 1941, during the height of the Second World War, Rudolf Hess single-handedly piloted a plane from Germany, making his way across the English Channel to the west coast of Scotland. He was spotted by the Royal Observer Corps, who urgently raised the alarm.

As Hess turned inland, he came into the sights of two anti-aircraft batteries, radioing through their station command, the gunners asked permission to open fire on the enemy aircraft. But strangely, the request to bring Hess's plane down was denied. There are conspiracy theories that the RAF pulled its punches, that they deliberately let him land. Questions were asked in Britain as to who knew about Hess's flight beforehand. Hess was involved in some kind of negotiations, prior negotiations, he got to Britain, you know, a tantalizing question would be, did Hitler know?

Just why had Hess flown to Britain? Who knew about his mission? And was his death really a suicide? Or, as some have come to believe, a murder, covered up in a bid to conceal the truth? Hess's rise to the second most powerful man in Nazi Germany started from obscure origins. He was born in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1894, the son of a wealthy German merchant. Despite being raised and educated abroad, Hess made regular visits to Germany, the country to which he had always felt most strongly connected. He was an expat German. His father was a businessman.

He was born in Alexandria in Egypt. And like many expats, he became more patriotic than Germans who had actually lived in. Germany. He was someone who actually was slightly on the fringes of the nation of which he became such a sort of an extreme advocate for. On the outbreak of World War I, Hess felt it his patriotic duty to join the fighting and enlisted in the German army. For Hess, this was really a mission.

He felt that this war was totally justified from the German side, and so he joined the army immediately because he felt that this was a necessary war. against the other nations, especially since in Egypt, all the property that his father had there was seized by the British. So obviously this was also a personal war of Hess against the British. While serving as platoon leader in Romania, Hess suffered shrapnel and bullet wounds. While recovering from his injuries, he applied to become a pilot with the German Air Force. After receiving his advanced training, Hess was assigned to the fighter squadron, but never saw any action in the air, as the war ended that same year. The real problem started in the eyes of Hess, because the way the war ended and the way the peace proposals were put forward, it was actually a dictated peace in the eyes of Hess.

He tried to re-establish the German reputation by becoming a very radical national socialist. The situation after World War I had angered and frustrated Hess. He felt that Germany had been unfairly treated for waging what he considered to be a justified war. With a growing interest in Germany's national affairs, he enrolled himself at the University of Munich in 9. to study history and economics. It was there that he met the man whose ideas would go on to be one of the pillars of Nazi ideology, Professor Karl Haushofer. Who developed a whole theory of what he called geopolitics and taught it as a subject.

Which is the significant interaction historically and economically between geography and politics. He suggested that the future was going to be belong to big power groupings like the Soviet Union, as then was, Western Europe, struggling for domination rather than individual small nations. And he postulated that Germany itself had to expand to the east to get what he called living space, Leibnizgheim. And this doctrine became one of the central pillars of the Nazi parties' policies. What he learned from Karl Haushofer would go on to have profound effects.

when Hess met the man who would change his life and the world forever. Adolf Hitler. Hess was already quite a nationalist and had the usual flash of right-wing and racist ideas, and he simply went along to a very early Nazi party meeting. After meeting at a Nazi rally, Hitler was impressed by Hess and his ideas. He soon rose through the ranks to become not only Hitler's most loyal and trusted follower, but was also an intimate friend and confidant. Hitler always liked uncritical admirers,

but he was interested in some of the ideas that Hess brought to the party, literally, such as geopolitics. And also, Hess did contribute to the writing of Hitler's autobiography come manifesto Mein Kampf. And he became the private secretary of Hitler. And these years, between 1925 and 1935

and 1933 these years when they become very, very close. And so Hess wasn't only a dumb disciple. He also brought ideas to the party early on. In fact, I would say his main importance to the party was in the very, very early days. Hess was absolutely indispensable for Hitler in many respects. First, in organizing the party, in keeping the inner circle together, and also in a way to make the National Socialist Party a credible party so that people could vote for this party. So in this respect, Hess was very important for Hitler, especially until 1933.

After 1933, the relationship changes. By then, Hitler had obtained his goal of becoming Chancellor of Germany and began his plans for war. Hess, who had up until now been a vital and influential party leader, suddenly found himself pushed to the sidelines. He is no longer on a daily basis with Hitler. That changes. And therefore, some people have come to the conclusion that he becomes less influential. The problem that Hess has is that there are other characters within the Nazi movement who are

much larger, much more brash, much more ambitious, much better political operators than he was. So he was constantly outmaneuvered by rather more clever members of the Nazi party like Himmler, like Goebbels, like Goering. And someone like Gurring, who was very much, you know, a very sort of affable, clubbable, larger than life individual, he was someone who played the game of politics much better than Hestead. In 1939, Germany invaded Poland, marking the onset of World War II.

And in retaliation, Britain declares war on Germany. Hitler effectively wanted Britain out of the way. But in terms of his own ambitions in Europe, he didn't necessarily want to destroy it. He saw Britain as a racial cousin, if you like, of the country. the Aryan Germans. He admired the British Empire. He would have been quite happy to leave Britain alone running the British Empire as long as Britain gave him a free hand to do what he wanted on the continent of Europe. Hitler was keen to avoid an all-out war with Britain, but Chief Air Marshal Hermann Goering had another plan. He convinced Hitler that the German Luftwaffe

could quickly gain air superiority over the skies of Britain and neutralize any first further threat. There's an attempt effectively to batter Britain back to the negotiating table. So that's what the Battle of Britain and the subsequent Blitz effectively is, is an attempt to bring the British, as Hitler would see it, to their senses, to bring them to the negotiating table so that they can be removed from the equation. In the 26 major attacks to get command of the air and lost 697 aircraft, the British lost 153.

1,000 mile front from Norway to France, the whole Nazi blitz program was being stalled because the RAF was still in the air. Unable to gain air superiority over Britain, Gurings Luftwaffe endured significant losses at the hands of the Royal Air Force. Having failed to batter the British into submission, the Nazis now decided to concentrate their efforts on Operation Barbarossa, the planned invasion of the Soviet Union. Britain still remained a threat to Hitler, who would now have to fight a war on two fronts. Hess, who had up to this point been sidelined from proceedings, saw an opportunity to make his

impact on the war. He was going to attempt to broker a peace deal between Britain and Nazi Germany. Hess certainly did know and was privy to the plans for Operation Barbarossa, and he also was privy to Hitler's thinking about Britain, that Hitler regarded Britain as a racial brother and saw no necessity after conquering France, that the war should go on with Britain. Has firmly believed that Hitler also wants peace with Britain. This is very important because he does not want to betray the Fuhrer.

He wants to do everything he can to support Hitler in his effort to bring about peace with Britain. that the war with Britain is wrong, this is a mistake made by the British that has to be corrected and can be corrected. And on the 10th of May 1941, apparently without the knowledge of Hitler, or any of the Nazi high command, Hess boarded his Messerschmitt BF 110. And in an act that has baffled generations of historians and investigators, flew nearly 1,000 miles on a solo mission to Britain. And it was a quite extraordinary feat for a man no longer young who hadn't really that much flying hours experience behind him. Having completed a seemingly impossible flight, Hess parachuted out of his plane just several miles from the Duke of Hamilton's estate in Scotland.

Landing with an injured leg, Hess was soon captured and taken for interrogation. On learning the news of his flight, Hitler was quick to respond. Hitler let out an animal scream that could be heard all over his house, the Beirchhoff, of rage, surprise and horror, because he knew that Hess was carrying in his head, if nothing else, the plans for the invasion of Russia, a month hence, and he very quickly moved to have Hess proclaimed as a madman. During his interrogation, Hess claimed to have an important message for the Duke of Hamilton. But doubts were raised about his mental health, and doctors were called to a sense. him.

When he realizes that his mission has failed, his self-appointed mission to achieve peace with the British, when he realizes that he is being kept under close guard, that his meetings that he imagined with this clique of politicians have not happened, that he's not been taken seriously, that he's been abandoned by the Germans who have declared him insane, the British are not taking him seriously, I think at that that, the British are not taking him seriously, I think at that point that mental fragility kicks in. But many unanswered questions about Hess's flight remained. What was the message that he was carrying?

Was he really acting without the knowledge of Germany or Britain? And why did he want to speak with the Duke of Hamilton? Hess remained in custody in Britain till the end of the war when he was transferred to Germany to stand trial at Nuremberg. The grossest crimes of Nazi Germany, by which I mean the Holocaust and the appalling atrocities they're committed in the East, were all done after Hess was already in British captivity in May 1941. Nevertheless, for his participation in the lead up to the war and his implementation of Nazi

policy, Hess was incriminated in many of the atrocities carried out by Germany during World War II. Rudolf Hess, guilty of conspiracy and crimes against peace, life imprisonment. Hess was an anti-Semite of the deepest eye from very early on. He'd acted quite brutally in the early days of the Nazi party, kidnapping Jews at the time of the Beahaw-Pitch, for example, and I have no doubt that he would have approved the extremes of the Holocaust. But his behavior at the trials, later... many to question whether he was fit to stand trial at all.

Certainly, I think he did act up to the eccentric stroke madman in that tribunal because he probably calculated that he was less likely to attract a death sentence if people thought he was at least a bit touched, if not completely crazy. His reaction to that sentence is as if he didn't understand what was being said to him. There's no reaction at all. There's not a flicker. So again, it speaks to this sense of sort of psychological absence. To see out his sentence, Hess was sent to a prison requisitioned by the Allies, Spandau. Spandau was originally a Prussian prison on the western outskirts of Berlin, had something like 600 cells that had been built in the 19th century.

It was requisitioned by the Allied powers after the war and was used for only seven of those sentenced at Nuremberg who were sentenced to periods of imprisonment. Hess is being the longest, which was life. Hess remained in Spandau for over 40 years, many of them in virtual solitary confinement until one day in 1987. The autopsy report conducted by the British authorities bound that Hess's death had been consistent with him taking his own life by hanging and ruled it as suicide. But his son, Wolf Hess, and his lawyer, Alfred Seidel, were skeptical about the verdict and ordered their own independent autopsy shortly afterwards. With the verdict of the British autopsy now disputed, as the independent autopsy suggested,

a murder, journalists and historians started to question the official version of events surrounding both Hess's death and his mysterious flight to Scotland in 1941. Many believed that there was more to the story than the authorities were telling us. And in 1997, they were given the chance to find out for themselves when the British government declassified Hess's files. There is some evidence a historian called Peter Padfield has gone into the this at some depth, there is some evidence that the British Secret Services, MI6, were aware that Hess was trying to get in touch with the Duke of Hamilton, that he was planning something.

And there is some evidence that he was manipulated and encouraged to make the flight. You see, this operation was run by the Secret Service from the moment Hess landed in this country and even before, actually. and anything that will appoint to the Secret Service will be in MI6 archives. If Hess really was murdered, who did it, and why? What was it he knew that they wanted to keep hidden? And did it have anything to do with his flight to Britain at the height of World War II? Three main questions about Rudolf Hess remained.

Were the British and Nazi governments aware of his plans? had he really lost his mind? And why did he think that peace with Britain would be possible unless he had received encouragement? I think you've got to remember that what a group of people call the appeasers from the upper middle classes. Particularly amongst the British aristocracy,

who support the Nazis effectively because they see the Soviet Union as a greater threat. You've got to remember, these people shared a number of beliefs, No, number one, Nazism was better than communism. So if you're going to make a choice, do you want Hitler who likes capitalism? In fact, capitalism flourishes in Nazi Germany, or do you want Stalin who hates capitalism and has banned private property?

They were prepared to support the Nazis because they saw the Nazis as a necessary, although ugly, but a necessary bullwark against a worse fate, which was what Stalin was promising further east. But by 1940, Britain had a new wartime prime minister, Winston Churchill. At the time, Churchill was seen by many as a warmonger and instigator, a man who under no circumstances would negotiate a peace with Nazi Germany. So Hess would have to tread carefully. Churchill, if you like, was the fly in the ointment.

His belligerence, the fact that he was marshalling the patriotic forces in the country with his incomparable rhetoric and oratory was a big problem. Hess firmly believes that Churchill is isolated within the British establishment and that there are very prominent and influential circles, particularly in the aristocracy, including the king, who would prefer to have peace with Germany. And he has certain contacts or he thinks that he has certain contexts. Hess had met many of the British elite in Germany before the onset of war, including future

King of Great Britain Edward, Duke of Windsor. The main reason why he was generally seen as a Nazi sympathizer was that he made a very well-publicized trip around Germany as Hitler's guest and was received more or less with the honors due to a reigning monarch by Hitler at Berchtes-Garden at his Barberian Mount in home. He also made unguarded, private and public comments that were seen as sympathetic to Germany. His own family, of course, were his mother was completely German, Queen Mary. So there was every reason for thinking that he was pro-German, if not pro-Nazi. But by 1941, the Duke's dangerous personal affiliations had led Churchill to send him abroad to see out the war without further

embarrassment. Hess would have to find someone else for his plan. His advisor, Albert Haushofer, suggested the man whom he knew personally, the Duke of Hamilton. The Duke of Hamilton was someone who Hess initially hoped would ease his, the transmission of his message up to this, what he imagined was this sort of clique of aristocrats and senior politicians. who might be able to overturn the Churchill government and effect peace with Germany. James Douglas Hamilton, the son of the Duke of Hamilton,

has been researching his father's connection to Rudolf Hess for many years. At Hess's request, Houseover wrote to Hamilton with a proposal. The letter sent by Albrecht Houseover appeared to be a relatively harmless letter, but there was something important important behind it. And what nobody knew was whether he was representing the views of the German opposition to Hitler or somebody else.

Nobody guessed that Hess was behind it. But Hamilton never received the letter. It was a fact, however, that this letter had been intercepted by the MI5, and they kept it for some time, and only in early May, just a few days before Hess flew, it was forwarded to the Duke of Hamilton. Despite Hess and Haushofer never receiving a response from Hamilton, Hess made the decision to still go ahead with the flight. They probably also assumed that Duke of Hamilton had no chance to answer this letter.

What was astonishing in particular about Hessie's mission was it took place at the end of three days of the heaviest bombing which London had experienced in the Second World War, and on the very day that he flew, the House of Commons was in flames burning as a result of German incendiary bombs. Many historians have argued that his decision to make the flight at this time

was a sign of his mental instability. But this was no spur-of-the-moment decision. He had, in fact, been planning it in detail for months. He had been adapting this plane, or had it adapted for him, the Meishersh Schmidt plane that he used. It normally had a crew of more than one man. He had added extra fuel tanks knowing that he had a long flight to go. And he trained for the flight in a place where his activities were unlikely to be known. And when he took off, he did so in the belief that he was.

that he could fly a measurement 110 very quickly and arrive over Scotland and if necessary parachute. It would be difficult to avoid the German air defenses. He was not sure that he would not be shot down by the Germans. Then he flew out to the sea, to the North Sea, and he had to make very complicated maneuvers to find, first of all, Scotland, and then to reach it. Then had to escape the British,

British air defences. He was actually tracked by a number of radar stations. A couple of aircrafts, a couple of Spitfires and a Bolton Paul defiant were sent up to try and catch him. But none of the aircraft that were sent up to find him actually did. And he ended up close to his target in the Scottish lowlands and bailed out of his aircraft around 11 o'clock that night. So it was a very complicated mission. So he was lucky that he survived this flight. After being captured and taken into custody, Hess gave the false name of Alfred Horn and requested

to speak with the Duke of Hamilton. The Duke of Hamilton, my father, was informed in the middle of the night and he looked up all his papers to see if he had met an Alfred Horn, but Alfred Horn's name did not appear amongst any of his papers. Intrigued as how a Lutvofa pilot had his name, Hamilton agreed to meet with him. Hess finally had the chance to deliver his message in person. And he said, I'm on a personal unauthorized mission.

I'm Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy, and I can tell you his inner mind so well, I know what his peace terms would be. And my father was absolutely astonished. and asked him how he could prove that he was who he said he was, and he produced a photograph. And my father said to him, I can see all the man in the photograph, but how do I know that that is the same man as Rudolf Hess?

And Hess produced the visiting card of Albrecht's houseover. And at that moment, my father thought he was likely that he was telling the truth as to him. his own identity. For Hess, his mission, the fate of Germany, and even his own life, were now in the hands of the Duke of Hamilton. Hess was certainly aware that the attempt to fly to Britain to convince the British aristocracy and maybe even the king to topple Churchill and then make peace with Germany was something

that would be very difficult to achieve. Hess had no other option but to wait, hoping that the Duke would relay his message to the British appeasers, whom he believed would rise up and overthrow Churchill. But it soon became clear that he had mistime the mission and misjudged the feeling in Britain. Preceded by a shower of flares, German bombers rain fire and high explosive bombs in their most savage attack on London. Here again is the blood, the sweat and tears that Nazi warfare brings to the men, women and children of city, town and village. What Hess was proposing would have suited Hitler down to the ground, but there was not one chance in a million that the British would agree to it.

And the British were very angry with having been bombed so heavily and a lot of innocent people being killed. They were in no mood to have peace talks with a Nazi leader. Realizing his mission had failed, Hess started a downward spiral, and during his time under arrest in Britain, he would make two separate attempts on his own life. He makes his first suicide attempt in Mitchard House in South of England where he jumps over a banister, throws himself down the stairs, breaks his leg. He would subsequently make another suicide attempt the following year. So you can see, I think, that this mental fragility kicks in, this rather paranoid mental state kicks in, I think as a result of his failure. He realizes that he's failed and that's where that fragility kicks in. Many times psychologists describe depression as the difference between who I am and who I think I ought to be.

In his case, he was a villain that thought he should be a hero. And then when it comes to this realization that, oh my God, everyone's seeing him. sees me as a villain, but I see myself as this hero and there's this big disconnect, then it's very hard to reconcile. And I think that's when we begin to see his spiral. He was deeply disappointed in June when his mission had failed, and that explains his suicide attempt. After receiving his life sentence at Nuremberg, Hess was sent to the notorious Spandau Prison.

Spandau was an old 19th century jail with, I think, room for 600 inmates, but it was exclusively used by the Allies to jail those Nazis who'd escape the death penalty but being found guilty and got prison sentences ranging from 10 years up to life, which is what Hess got. Hess was one of seven inmates in a prison designed to hold up to 600. For years he kept to himself, rarely engaging with the other prisoners. Hess lived a very sort of basic existence from day today, and for someone who was already emotionally and psychologically fragile, we can only imagine that the experience of being in Shbandau for over 40 years can have done nothing to help his mental

state. Casting a sad and lonely figure, many of the guards and wardens took pity on the now elderly Hess, some even publicly calling for his release. An old decrepit man staying now, living alone, practically in solitary confinement, in a prison built for 600 people living out the remainder of his days in this prison. I feel strongly that this man should be released. The time has come when he should be released. I'm not talking about his guilt in the past. Whether it was guilty or not, I'm saying that in our modern times today, this, treatment of this man is barbaric. Hess's son Wolf took up the crusade, launching legal bids and petitioning the Allies for his father's

release. I'm also very grateful to the British government and especially to Mr. Thompson for giving me the opportunity to put the case for my father's freedom. There must be negotiations about his release. The pressure to release Hess was mounting, and he had even become a symbol of the growing neo-Nazi movement. Last night, the tensions created by the neo-Nazi's presence turned into violence. Recently disclosed documents revealed that most of the allied countries were in favor of releasing Hess, apart from one.

Hess, by the end of his life, has become a pawn in the power games of the Cold War. The Pounder prison was much more than just a prison complex to keep Rudolf Hess in prison. It was a symbol for the power of the Soviet Union to play a role with the other powers within the forepower regime. During the Cold War with the East-West divide in Germany, Spandau provided Russia with a foothold in the West. Many even accused Russia of keeping Hess at Spandau to allow them to carry out espionage activities. From the Western perspective, it's also a matter of cost. You have this enormous installation, a huge 19th century prison built for 600 people, and it is all being maintained for one single individual.

It's much less in that respect from the allied perspective, the question of the cold world. It's much more humanitarian and practical, financial. I think Hess's long imprisonment obscures the fact that he was a pretty nasty piece of work. He did some pretty horrible things early on in his career. He was twisted. He believed implicitly in the Nazi racial theories. He bought that. He contributed to Hitler's rantings in Mein Kampf.

The fact that he was treated in that many people would say cruel and anti-human way, being imprisoned all those long, long years, I think has given him more sympathy the sympathy than he actually deserves. But on the 17th of August, 1987, the argument of whether to release Rudolf Hess or help him see out his sentence ended. The truth about his wartime flight to Britain, the cost of his incarceration, being a living symbol of Nazism and providing Russia with a legitimate presence in the West. All of these have been put forward as motives for wanting Hess gone.

But was it murder or simply the actions of a man wanting to determine his own fate? Wolf Rudiger Hess did everything to prove that Hess had not committed suicide, but that he had been murdered. And there were certain rumors because it was. were the British who did the autopsy, the first autopsy, and not an independent clinic. And then, of course, when Wolf Rudiger has insisted that the second autopsy should be made by a German clinic

in Munich, then it turned out that those things that could have proven that had been murdered or committed suicide were no longer there, did no longer exist. Rudolf Hess was as much an enigma in life as he was in death. A complicated man who ended up on the fringes of the regime he had helped to create. Yet with so many unanswered questions remaining, it's no surprise that a question mark still hangs over his death.

Hess is still a symbol for the extreme right-wing movement here in Germany, for the so-called neo-Nazis. That's a legend for them, okay, Hess, and this old man, man was killed by the Allies as a prisoner. The flight of Hess and Hess's whole life and his whole later life especially is so weird, so strange, this one-man flight and what the hell was he doing that a conspiracy theory was almost bound to attract itself to Rudolf Hess. And it is quite wrong to try and present him as some sort of victim tricked by the British.

He was a perpetrator. He supported Hitler in word, thought, and deed. What he wanted was the perpetuation of the thousand-year Reich, and there was no chance that he was ever going to succeed. Unexplored catacombs buried beneath the city, a crumbling castle perched on a mountain peak, a top-secret government bunker, a cursed mansion cloaked in legend.

I'm Sasha Auerbach. Join me in Tom Ward every Wednesday and Sunday as we reveal the mysteries and history behind these abandoned places and ask, where did everyone go? We'll hear from Sasha, who knows the history the best. In fact, there's a very famous book by a chap named Marcus Rediker called The Many Headed Hydra,

and he talks about pirate ships as an experiment in radical democracy. And me, who knows nothing, aeronautical scientists can't quite explain it. They say, we don't actually know how it gets up there. No, no, no. How it stays up? You're just not good at a science. No, there are explanations?

There are explanations. It's just plain physics. Brought to you by Like a Shot, makers of forbidden history. Search for Where Did Everyone Go on your favorite podcast platform.