Solo Hess mission finished in farce

by Matt Wells
The Scotsman, Wednesday 27 January 1999

WHEN Adolf Hitler's second-in-command crash-landed in Renfrewshire alter a solo flight from Germany, he was greeted not by an elite corps of troops but by a motley crew of special constables and Home Guard volunteers. Locals dined out on the story of the amateur rescue party for years afterwards. But now, declassified M15 files formally tell the definitive story of Hess's mission of 10 May, 1941. According to M15 documents, the first to arrive on the scene near Eaglesham were Special Constable William and Captain Clark of the Home Guard. Soon, a crowd of 200 home guardsmen, police and locals had gathered. In an effort to assert some sort of authority Capt Clark ordered the removal of Hess to his headquarters - at the local Girl Guides hut. It quickly became clear that a German speaker was required and Roman Battaglia, Poland's vice-consul in Glasgow, was summoned. For two hours, the pair conversed without establishing Hess's identity.

After months of interrogation, secret service agents were none the wiser as to Hess's intentions. He always maintained that he was engaged on a peace mission, hoping to end the war before what he predicted would be a disastrous invasion of Russia by Germany. Hess always denied M15' s suspicions that the visit was a precursor to a German invasion of Britain. Hess claimed that he had been heading for the west of Scotland estate of the Duke of Hamilton, with whom he fe1t he could negotiate peace. Indeed, intelligence reports from Germany suggested that there was no sinister motive. M15 was never under any illusions about the potential usefulness of Hess. "He is a poor type completely devoid of intellectual (or even intelligent) interests: he cannot be drawn into conversation on anything," a M15 report noted. Hess was sentenced to life imprisonment at the Nurernberg war trials in 1946. He died in Berlin's Spandau jail, the sole remaining prisoner, in 1987.

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