(Domarus, 1709).
200. TBJG, I/9, 312–13 (14–15 May 1941).
201. Kershaw, ‘Hitler Myth’, 167.
202. GStA, MA 106671, report of the Regierungsprasident of Oberbayern, 10 June 1941: ‘… der Monat der Geruchte’.
203. See Kershaw, ‘Hitler Myth’, 164.
204. TBJG, I/9, 313–14 (15 May 1941).
205. TBJG, I/9, 315 (16 May 1941).
206. Hans-Jochen Gamm, Der Flusterwitz im Dritten Reich, Munich, 1972, 36; The Berlin Diaries 1940–1945 of Marie ‘Missie’ Vassiltchikov, London, 1985, 51 (18 May 1941), and 50–51 for other He? jokes.
207. Kershaw, ‘Hitler Myth’, 1 6off., 166–7.
208. See Hewel’s description of the meeting, IfZ, ED 100, Irving-Sammlung, Hewel-Tagebuch, entry for 13 May 1941: ‘Chief and Goring on the mountain. 4 o’clock all Reichsleiter and Gauleiter up there. Bormann reads out He?’s letters. Dramatic meeting. Great emotion. Furer comes, speaks very personally, analyses deed as such and proves mental disturbance through illogicality… Very moving demonstration. Sympathy. “The Furer is spared nothing.”’ (‘Chef und Goring auf dem Berg. 4 Uhr alle Reichsleiter und Gauleter oben. Bormann verliest He?’ Briefe. Dramatische Versammlung. Gro?e Ergriffenheit. Fuhrer kommt, spricht sehr personlich, analysiert Tat als solche und beweist Geistesgestortheit an Unlogik…. Sehr ergreifende Kundgebung. Mitleid. “Dem Fuhrer bleibt auch nichts erspart.” ‘) For a summary of Hitler’s remarks, drawn up in Gau Kurhessen on the basis of an eye-witness account, see Franz Graf-Stuhlhofer, ‘Hitler zum Fall He? vor den Reichs- und Gauleitern am 13. Mai 1941. Dokumentation der Knoth-Nachschrift’, Geschichte und Gegenwart, 18 (1999), 95 –100.
209. Cit. Fest, Face, 292.
210. IfZ, MA 120/5, Fol.480, ‘Rede Hans Franks uber Wirkung des Englandflugs von Rudolf He?’: ‘Der Fuhrer war so vollkommen erschuttert, wie ich das eigentlich noch nicht erlebt habe.’ ‘I was absolutely dismayed (Ich war geradezu entsetzt),’ Frank wrote after the war, in prison in Nuremberg (Frank, 411).
211. Robert M. W. Kempner, Das Dritte Reich im Kreuzverhor. Aus den Vernehmungsprotokollen des Anklagers, Dusseldorf, 1984, 107–9 (testimony of Gauleiter Ernst Wilhelm Bohle).
212. TBJG, I/9, 312 (14 May 1941).
213. Kempner, 106.
214. R. Schmidt, 5 n.20, points out that the bugging of Bodenschatz’s conversations with other former high- ranking officers of the Luftwaffe while he was in British captivity has undermined his evidence, and thereby the testimony on which so many have relied to claim that Hitler was implicated. Julius Schaub, Hitler’s longstanding adjutant and general factotum, was convinced, in post-war testimony, that Hitler knew nothing of He?’s flight. (IfZ, ZS 137, Julius Schaub, Vernehmung, 12 March 1947, Fol. 14).
215. See R. Schmidt, 5 n.20.
216. Costello tries to make the case for a British Secret Service plot. But for criticism, see R. Schmidt, 5 n.20. I am most grateful to Ted Harrison for the opportunity to read in advance of publication his essay ‘“… wir wurden schon viel zu oft hereingelegt” ‘. ‘Mai 1941: Rudolf He? in englischer Sicht’, in Kurt Patzold and Manfred Wei?becker, eds., Rudolf He?. Der Mann an Hitlers Seite, Leipzig, 1999, 368–92, 523–6, which provides a thorough investigation of British intelligence and the He? affair, plainly demonstrating the absence of any plan to lure He? to Britain, or prior knowledge that he was coming.
217. After the war, Goring poured scorn on the notion that Hitler had been behind the He? flight. Would he have sent him on such a lone mission without the slightest preparation, he asked? Had he wanted to deal with Britain, semi-official channels through neutral countries (as had been the case with Dahlerus) were open to him, and he, Goring, could through his connections have organized this within forty-eight hours (Irving, Goring, 323).
218. Cit. R. Schmidt, 14.
219. R. Schmidt, 15–16.
220. See also R. Schmidt, 26–7 for He?’s third interrogation with Lord Simon and Kirkpatrick on 9 June. Here, too, He? explicitly denied any knowledge of his escapade by Hitler. See also National Archives, NND 881102, US intelligence report on He?, 28 Oct. 1941: ‘Hess has always insisted that Hitler had no knowledge of his flight.’
221. See Schmidt, 26.
222. Padfield, Hess, xiii for ‘Fraulein Anna’ and xiv for other unflattering nicknames. Sir John Simon concluded from his interrogation of He? on 10 June ‘that He?’s position and authority in Germany have declined and that if he could bring off the coup of early peace on Hitler’s terms he would confirm his position… and render an immense service to his adored Master and to Germany’ (cit. Schmidt, 28).
223. NA, NND — 881102; Douglas-Hamilton, The Truth about Rudolf Hess, 68, 128ff.; Irving, HW, 246–7 and n.2. Harrison, ‘Rudolf He?’, 369–71, points out that the British counter-intelligence organization MI5 had received on 2 November 1940 a letter from Albrecht Haushofer to Hamilton, dated 23 September and intercepted by British censors. This referred to a previous letter of July 1939, and suggested a meeting with Hamilton in Lisbon, or elsewhere on the periphery of Europe. MI5 discussed the letter with the Secret Service, with a view to using Hamilton to ply the Germans with misinformation. Hamilton himself was not consulted about the idea until some months later. Meanwhile, the original of the letter went missing. Hamilton’s cagey response to the proposal left the British authorities hesitant about proceeding. It was at this point that He? arrived.
224. Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, 379, expressing Cadogan’s impatience with Churchill’s initial line, that He? had come on a peace-mission, which he thought corresponded too closely with what German propaganda was saying. Churchill, in a furious temper, only bowed next day, 15 May, to pressure from Cadogan and other advisers to refrain from a public statement on the He? affair. Massively relieved that the British had not acted as he would have done in making maximum propaganda capital out of the affair — ‘the only but also dreadful danger for us’ — Goebbels remarked that ‘it seems as if a guardian angel is again standing near us’, witheringly concluding that ‘we’re dealing with dim dilettantes (mit doofen Dilettanten) over there. What we would do if it were the other way round!’ (TBJG, I/9, 315 (16 May 1941).
225. See R. Schmidt, 24.
226. R. Schmidt, 29.
227. Irving, Goring, 316–17, 327; Irving, HW, 22m.
228. R. Schmidt, 10; Gabriel Gorodetsky, ‘Churchill’s Warning to Stalin. A Reappraisal’, The Historical Journal, 29 (1986), 979–90. For information reaching Stalin on the German military build-up, and his awareness of a coming invasion, see Valentin Falin, Zweite Front. Die Inter-essenkonflikte in der Anti-Hitler-Koalition, Munich, 1995, 193–5.
229. R. Schmidt, 18–19. Harrison, ‘Rudolf He?’, 382–8, plays down the intent, emphasizing instead the confusion in the British Foreign Office and the missed propaganda opportunity, while acknowledging the enormous concern and misinterpretation which ensued in the Soviet leadership.
230. R. Schmidt, 34–6.
231. Stalin was still suspicious about the He? affair, believing it had been a plot to involve Britain and Germany entering the war together against the Soviet Union, some three years later (Churchill, iii.49).
232. R. Schmidt, 32, 36. Such moves do not provide evidence of a prior intention on the part of the Soviet Union to attack Germany — the notorious ‘preventive war theory’. See Chapter 9 n.4, below.
233. Weisungen, 139–40; Domarus, 1719–20; Oxford Companion, 571.
234. Elizabeth-Anne Wheal and Stephen Pope, The Macmillan Dictionary of the Second World War, 2nd edn, London, 1995, 57–9, contains a summary description of the sinking of the Bismarck. A vivid account is provided by Churchill, iii.Ch.XVII.
235. Hewel recorded the ‘very depressed mood (sehr deprimierte Stimmung)’ among the Nazi leadership on account of the fate of the Bismarck. Hitler was ‘endlessly