Adolf Hitler’s Star-Crossed Love with Britain: The U.K.’s Fake “Neutrality” in Relation to Nazi Germany’s “Operation Barbarossa” directed against the Soviet Union
Part III
Never during this time did Great Britain agree to peace negotiations. She steadily continued her shelling of German cities. She showed her resolve to fight until the end. The United Kingdom could be fought, and even defeated, but after examining his options, Adolf Hitler asked himself two questions. What price would this victory cost him? And most important – what was the point?
And then on May 10, 1941, Hitler’s closest ally, Rudolf Hess, flew to the UK, seemingly at his own initiative.[1] This was a desperate attempt to make peace between Germany and England. Although strictly speaking, Hess’s objective was not actually a secret:
“He [Hess] knew and was capable of understanding Hitler’s inner mind – his hatred of Soviet Russia, his lust to destroy Bolshevism, his admiration for Britain and earnest wish to be friends with the British Empire …”[2]
Little more than a month remained before the scheduled attack on the USSR. Hitler needed to decide whether or not to launch Operation Barbarossa. The plans for that invasion were not yet set in stone. The decision to attack the Soviet Union had still not been finalized as Hess was preparing for his flight. Hitler would never have begun a war on two fronts. So why did he end up doing exactly that? Because when he launched his offensive against the USSR he was convinced that there was no second front and never would be! That was the outcome of Hess’s flight.
It is important to understand that the big secret behind the mysterious flight to England by Hitler’s deputy leader had nothing to do with Hitler’s offer, but with the British response to it!
The British guaranteed their benevolent neutrality in the matter of Hitler’s future war with the USSR. And they promised to accept Germany’s long-standing offer of peace once Russia had been vanquished.
“The infamous Hess was actually sent to England by the Nazis with the aim of persuading British politicians to join the collective crusade against the Soviet Union. But the Germans made a serious miscalculation. Despite Hess’s efforts, Britain and the US … were, on the contrary, in the same camp as the USSR against Nazi Germany,” stated Stalin from his besieged capital of Moscow.
Once Hitler decided to attack the Soviet Union, that meant England had given its blessing to the campaign. That’s the only explanation. Great Britain methodically pitted Nazi Germany against Russia, and eventually the British managed to force the Führer to attack the USSR. Hitler was duped by his own admiration for England. The leader of Germany behaved foolishly because the English had promised him they would remain neutral. The German air raids raging over Britain suddenly came to an end immediately after Hess’s visit, only to resume in January 1943.
In May 1941, Rudolf Hess brought a peace overture from the Führer to the British. Great Britain authorized Hitler’s attack on Russia, promising its assistance, but had double-crossed the Germans by June 22, 1941.
On Aug. 17, 1987, Rudolf Hess, the last of the living leaders of the Third Reich, was found hanged in Spandau Prison at age 93. He had been held for 46 years. All the others who had been sentenced to prison along with him at the Nuremberg Trials had left long ago. After 1966 he was the only remaining inmate at Spandau prison. The diplomat Konstantin von Neurath served eight years of his 15-year sentence before being released, officially due to ill health. Admiral Karl Dönitz and the head of the Hitler Youth, Baldur von Schirach, were also discharged from that prison, having served ten and twenty years respectively. But Rudolf Hess’s incarceration continued.
Why? Because, the reader will say, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. But … that is not quite right. The exact same life sentence did not stop Admiral Raeder from being freed after only ten years, or Walter Funk, the Reich Minister for Economic Affairs, who served for 12. They were released because they did not possess Hess’s terrible secret. The fact was that he alone knew what promises the British had made to Hitler and why the Führer believed them …
The circumstances surrounding his death are completely mysterious. Examinations of the body showed that Hess had been strangled and made to look like a suicide. But who would have committed such a heinous act? Hess’s son, Wolf Rüdiger, never doubted that his father had been murdered by the British. British diplomacy’s terrible secret, which spurred Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union, could never be revealed. And the unintentional cause of his death was … the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The fact is – some voices in the West had long been calling for Hess’s release. But the USSR had always been the staunchest opponent to freeing him, long convinced that Nazis had no place in the outside world. But with perestroika in full swing, Gorbachev told his Western friends that he was prepared to make a goodwill gesture by discharging Hess. Thus he signed Hess’s death sentence. The British had to act quickly to silence this undesirable witness.
All the material evidence of the causes of Rudolf Hess’s death: the summer house, electrical cord, furniture, and even Spandau prison itself – were destroyed immediately after his demise. The folders containing the documents on the Hess case have been classified by the British government until 2017. Will we ever learn the truth about Britain’s negotiations with Hess in May 1941? Only time will tell.
***
… When Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, he was cruelly deceived by the British on the very first day. On the evening of June 22, Churchill, speaking on the BBC, promised: “[W]e are resolved to destroy Hitler and every vestige of the Nazi regime …. It follows, therefore, that we shall give whatever help we can to Russia and the Russian people.”[3] But it is interesting that the Soviet Union never received aid from either the UK or the US during the times when it was really needed or in the needed quantities (for more details, please read WWII lend-lease: was the US aid that helpful?). The British were paying close attention to the crucial battles on the Eastern Front, waiting for the USSR’s defeat and the chance to deliver the deathblow to Hitler’s exhausted troops. Only when it became clear in 1944 that the Soviet Union was beating back Nazi Germany unaided, did Washington and London decide to open a second front so they could claim a share of the “victors’” laurels.
Meanwhile, the story of Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, the sources of the subsequent economic “miracle” in a Germany with the Nazi leader at her helm, his love for the United Kingdom, and his sympathy for English methods of managing subjugated nations, point clearly to the true culprit of the Second World War. That guilty party deserves to share the shameful laurels awarded to the murderer of millions of people, right alongside the Third Reich, which was so carefully and quickly erected amidst the German ashes of World War I.
Oriental Review has completed exclusive translations of the chapters from Nikolay Starikov’s documentary research ““Who Made Hitler Attack Stalin” (St.Petersburg, 2008). Mr. Starikov is Russian historian and civil activist. The original text was adapted and translated by ORIENTAL REVIEW.
Notes:
[1] The timing of Hess’s flight was carefully chosen. According to the plan drafted by the German General Staff, preparations for Operation Barbarossa needed to be complete by May 15, 1941.
[2] Winston Churchill. The Grand Alliance. Pg. 44.
[3] Christopher Catherwood. His finest hour. Pg. 154.
