No. 3 Nazi Captured

[Globalization41]

Berlin, By Telephone to The New York
Times, Monday, May 12, 1941: The news of
the mysterious disappearance of Herr Rudolf
Hess, 47-year-old deputy leader of the
National Socialist party and next to Reich
Marshal Hermann Goering in the line of
succession for leadership of the German
State, was released, 48 hours after he had
been reported missing, in the following
communique: Rudolf Hess has met with an
accident. Party Comrade Hess, who has
been categorically forbidden by the Fuehrer to
continue his flying activities because of a
disease that for a year has progressively
worsened, recently found means in violation of
this command to come into possession of an
airplane. ... On Saturday, May 10, about 8
P.M., Party Comrade Hess took off from
Augsburg for a flight from which until today he
has not returned. A letter that he left behind
unfortunately indicated, by its incoherence,
symptoms of a mental derangement that
permits the inference that Comrade Hess
became the victim of hallucinations. ... The
Fuehrer immediately ordered the arrest of
the adjutants of Party Comrade Hess, who
alone new of these flights, and knowing of the
prohibition by the Fuehrer, did not prevent or
immediately report them. ... Under the
circumstances, the National Socialist
movement must regretfully assume that
Comrade Hess has crashed or met with an
accident somewhere on his flight.

London, Special Cable to The New York
Times, By Robert P. Post, Tuesday, May 13,
1941: [Late Monday, U.S. time] Rudolf Hess,
deputy leader of the German Nazi party and
the third-ranking personage in the German
State, parachuted to earth in Scotland on
Saturday night and is now a prisoner of war.
... That may sound like something from a
mystery thriller by Oppenheim. But in sober
truth, 10 Downing Street issued a
communique Monday night that is probably
the strangest and most dramatic document
ever to come from the official home of a
British Prime Minister. ... The statement said:
Rudolf Hess, the Deputy Fuehrer of Germany,
and party leader of the National Socialist
party, has landed in Scotland in the following
circumstances: On the night of Saturday, the
tenth, a Messerschmitt 110 crashed near
Glasgow with its guns unloaded. Shortly
afterward a German officer who had bailed out
was found with his parachute, suffering from a
broken ankle. He was taken to a hospital in
Glasgow, where at first he gave his name as
Horn, but later on he declared that he was
Rudolf Hess. ... The Ministry of Information
announced early Tuesday that Herr Hess's
identification had been definitely established.

[Both Hess and Hitler considered the British
Empire a stabilizing influence in world affairs,
the communists in Russia incapable of
economic prosperity, and the Ukraine a
resource-rich area to colonize. Both favored
war against the Soviets and peace with the
British. Hess had convinced himself that he
could initiate, through his friends in the
British upper class, a peace treaty between
Britain and Germany, thus allowing Hitler to
concentrate all his military against the
Russians. ... In 1938 the British (and French)
appeased Hitler, who was threatening war, by
allowing his forces to occupy part of
Czechoslovakia with Hitler's promise that he
would make no more territorial demands. In
early 1939 Hitler double-crossed the British
and French by grabbing the rest of
Czechoslovakia. This hardened the policy of
the Allies and war was declared on Germany
when Hitler invaded Poland later that year.
By May of 1941, the British policy was to
continue hostilities until Hitler abandoned all
his conquests from Poland onward. Thus the
British were not receptive to Hess's ideas.
And neither was Hitler now that the Russian
invasion was already scheduled, since, for
surprise purposes, he wanted Stalin to believe
that the next Nazi invasion would be the
British Isles.]

[Stay tuned for late breaking war bulletins.
... Globalization41.]