Thinking Sideways: Rudolph Hess

World War two mystery. Yeah. Yeah, that's a lot of a lot of cool stuff happened around World War Two. Time kicking it old school. Yeah. So our story begins in the year nine. Germany had overrun much of Europe and was at war with Great Britain. As we all know, or you should know anyway, really do. Pass was the Deputy fear of the National Socialist Democratic Workers Party AK the Nazis at the time, and he was the third

most powerful man in Germany after Hitler and Goring. Though he was a v I P. On May Tense, nineteen forty one, has did something kind of strange. He climbed into a measure from it BF one ten fighter bomber. By the way, that I mentioned that Rudolph has knew how to fly, Yeah, but we know, yeah, he knew how to fly, and he flew to Scotland. His intention, he said, was to negotiate a piece between Britain and Germany. So what the hell was he thinking? Yeah, big question,

Yeah it was. Was he deranged? As Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler both said. And also the general consensus is that Hitler was not aware before he left on his flight that he was going to leave and go to England, which is a little strange. Yeah, yeah, and that's a general consensus. But really is that true? Did Hitler really not know that his his third in command was going on in a little trip. We're going out a little peace, mister little? Yeah. Can I briefly ask, maybe you'll talk

about it later. Why Scotland? Uh? Well, there was a guy living in Scotland, that's the Duke of Hamilton's, Yeah, who he felt might be sympathetic to his cause. Okay, so we'll talk about that in a minute, Yeah we will. And also Rudolph ass left us with one last little mystery, which is how did he die? The official story is he committed suicide. But but other people think that he was murdered. Yeah, I've read up on this and I can see how they would think that. Oh yeah, a

lot a lot of people think he was murdered. That well, let me tell you a little background on Rudolph. He joined the Nazi Party in nineteen twenty after hearing Adolph Hitler speak at an event in Munich. He was member number sixties, so he really got in on the ground floor of the whole thing. And that was at the time when Hitler was considered more charismatic and less crazy talk. Yeah, so he was much more of a fair motivational speaking I mean, I imagine that's how we got a lot

of people in the beginning. Yeah. Well, and and this is post World War two, and with one post World one, yeah, exactly, my bad, post World War One, and a lot of Germans, of course, you know, they were under the Versite Treaty. The Gernamans were quite harsh and a lot of Germans were very very angry about the outcome of the war. And and so Hitler tapped into that pretty nicely. No, he definitely did. It. Turns out it's not so hard

for crazy people to rally around the guys of fixing everything. Yeah, I know, yeah, Hitler fixed things real good. Well, like I said the guy. Yeah, uh, you guys thought, I'm sure heard of the famous beer hall push in thee when Hitler and Hess and a bunch of other Nazis went into a German beer hall where they were holding a Bugian town meeting basically tried to start a revolution. I have read about this briefly, and it never made sense to me, like it never seemed how I never

understood why they thought it was a good idea. I mean either, I never never did either. But it turns out, yeah, it didn't work out so well for him. They wanted up. Hitler and Hess both went to jail for a while, and at that time when that Hitler wrote his magnum opus Mind comp in jail and has helped him edit it, so he was part of that too. And at this this is really when they started becoming really good friends

and very close, very close relationship between these two. And they always had a very close relationship, I mean through the years, not just at this point forward, is what I'm getting. Yeah, I think that their time together in jail really kind of cemented the relationship, though, Has, as you all know, rose to power along with Hitler. And Has this is a guy who introduced the concept of

Leban's round. Hitler he'd got an idea from one of his university professors at the University of Munich uh, and Leban's round in German means quote, let's go conquer most of eastern Europe so we can live correct translation rate exactly what actually does it means living room and not not the living room in your house? Yeah? Yeah, they felt that I like the regional translation. Yeah yeah, well I as we all know, Hitler really took to the idea.

Yeah he did. Uh. In June nineteen four, Hitler was heard to say that what he wanted most was peace with Britain. And they've been at war with Britain for about a year and a half at this point, about correct, Yeah, on that, okay, And he said that he felt it really was no need for the two countries to be at war. And besides, I'm sure he had better use for all those military assets that he was throwing at the Brits because um. In June one, of course, Operation

Barbar also got underway. That was the invasion of the Soviet Union. But prior to that, they've been sending plane after plane after plane just bombing the holy crap out of Britain. Yeah, which is a lot of that's a lot of material, Yeah, which we could be more usefully spent on bombing Russians instead of Brits. You know. In June nineteen when Hitler said that they wanted peace, it looks like has started planning his piece initiative about that time.

Rudolph Hess first learned to fly in the German military near the end of World War one, uh and after the war in nine he got a price the pilot's license on several different planes, not all the same time. I don't think I don't think he was out wealthy, but he got pretty good at flying single engine planes.

In October nineteen forty, who want to the Messer Schmidt Aircraft works in Augsburg, Bavaria, I hope, I pronounced Agsburg right, and he told them that he wanted to start training on the Messer Schmidt BF one ten, which is a twin engineer plane with a lot better rains and your typical single engine. And he received instruction on how to fly from a Measter Schmith test pilot, and the company held a plane for his own personal use, which was nice of them. Well, I mean, yeah, but one of

Hitler's best friends. You're not going to be like guy number three. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. They probably didn't make him pay for it either. No, I'm sure they didn't. They probably didn't even make him pay for the gas or all the upgrades. Yeah, they they did upgraded a bit. They installed a radio compass, long range drop tanks, which are fuel tanks, reportedly modified the oxygen delivery system, though I'm not sure exactly what was done there. That's all

I heard. I would imagine that they were extending the range of the plane regarding fuel, they might want to add some oxygen to They would probably have upgraded the oxygen system to match it. Probably, Yeah, I would guess that as well. It seems like oxygen would be an important component to right directly following fuel. Yes, I don't know. Oxygen might be even more important than fuel on a

fuel that if you can't breathe them blackout, it doesn't matter. Yeah. Alternately, if you run out of fuel, you might be able to pilot the plane to a safer landing even if the fuel runs out as long as the oxygen. So we're both right. Yeah, okay, yeah, I'm going to call us a win win. So what are we at here?

Made tense that theay of reckoning at PM has climbed into his Meastrishman took off in the airport at Augsburg and flew northwest, eventually turned north, hit the coast of the North Sea, right around bremer Haven, Germany, turned east trip to stay out of the rage of British radar, and then turned north northwest nine PM, re turned west southwest and headed towards the northern part of England. So hang on here, Joe, just so people get an idea.

He took off, he headed and he basically did a kind of a zigzag north is what he was doing until he got to Scotland, and then he was hanging basically a Greek turn, correct, not a one eight really was that was exactly. But he went west northwest and then basically made a ninety degree turn and headed not excuse me, he had a north northwest and then made

a ninety degree turn and headed west southwest. Yeah, so I think part of it is he was killing a little bit of time because he wanted it to be dark when he when he actually hit England, and so it was dark. He actually did sort of kill some time out at sea too, waiting for it to get dark, and then flew over the northern part of England um at about fifty ft of altitude. So he was picked up on the radar and some r a F fighters

were scrambled to intercept him, but they couldn't find him. Well, the thing that I didn't understand for a long time when I was doing the reading is if he why was he killing so much in time? Why didn't he just leave later in the day. That would have been a good idea. Well, it turns out he was following a U is it the blitz Crieg. Yeah, he was following a group of planes and tagging along on their

navigation to get himself to Britain. So he was following a suite of bombers that were heading for London that day. That's the reason he left when he did, instead of saying, what, I'll leave like an hour and a half later and then I don't have to dink around in the middle of the ocean flying in circles. I mean, that was probably a good idea, just for radars as well. Yeah, although you don't want to be tagging tag along with those guys when they actually reached Britain, because it's going

to be after you. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of flak in the air at that point, that too. Yeah, so yeah, you understand why he didn't like to fly just directly to London and then north. He didn't leave them. Yeah, a little letter. Ten pm he was picked up on radar, asist said, and he flew north into Scotland. He was mostly navigating by landmarks. It should be kind of tricky in the dark. Yeah. He was having trouble finding his destination, which was a place called Dune Gable House and I

could be pronouncing that incorrectly. I looked it up on the internet and I got three different pronouncing nation pronunciations of it. Yeah, yeah, so well. And the reason he was having such hard time in the dark though, was because it's wartime. Everybody was keeping their lights off at now or shuttering their windows, so there was nothing to navigate by. I know, so well, there's landmarks still, but I mean fight on the ground and say oh this should be should be this town? Yeah, I know that

that would be it was a tricky thing. And uh, but anyway, the dun Gable House is the home of the Duke of Hamilton's. It's not that anymore now. It's like an immigrant detention center somehow, so somehow that the Duke of Hamilton's lives somewhere else now. The Duke was a friend who has his friend Albert hoss Hoofer, who

had a lot of English contacts. In fact, there were lots of There was lots of contacts between the British aristocracy and a lot of the German aristocracy because they all knew each other, there aristocracy, and they're all like that, they're all that kind of family. Has thought that Hamiltonson was would be sympathetic to his peace mission. And again there's there's a little bit of back and forth about exactly why he believed that. I'll talk about that in

more detail later. Some people think that perhaps m I six tricked to him into thinking that there was a whole bunch of people in Britain that would be really receptive to his peace proposal. So that's one theory that's out there well. And then there's also the what is it the Anglo Germanic society was that what wash I think it was the Anglo German Friendship Society something like that. Yeah, that was. That was I think also one of the

big theories of why he thought he would be sympathetic. Yeah, and also the Duke had access to King George's sixth and that was that would be a big bonus. And also best of all, done Gable House had an airstrip because highly important for airplane Yeah and yeah, the Duke of Hamilton, it turns out, was also an airplane enthusiast

like Hess, so they had something in common there. I should also note it was rumor that a number of members of the royal family were pro German, or at least not in favor of war with Germany, which really wouldn't be too outlandish. When do you think that, consider that they're actually part German themselves. You know. The House of Windsor Windsor actually did not begin until when they changed their name from what was it the House of Saxe,

Coburn and Gotha, which doesn't exactly sound British. And yeah, yeah, so that the name change was due to anti German sentiment World War One, Oh yeah, I'm sure. And so down now that the Windsor's Uh. The way back to Rudolph Hesse and his plane, he was having trouble finding the Duke's house, so he turned flew west to the first of Clyde, where he oriented himself, and then he flew back inland. But by the time he was back in the vicinity of doom Gable, he was low on

fuel and he had picked up a little company. Yeah I know, arif interceptor finally began pursuit of him. And this is I forget the name of the plane. It's an interesting looking plane. Instead of having a four guns and the wings like most fighters do you think of having, you know, this one didn't have those, but it had behind the pilot there was a turret with a couple of gun barrels sticking out of it. Really, yeah, I didn't look just playing up. Yeah, it's a strange little

strange look a little plane. It would almost have been if if I if you were to imagine it being a two seater. The second seat was actually the gun Yeah, it was actually the gunner. Yeah, sitting there and raised tail is a raised turret over the over the pilot's seat. So you know, I mean handy because you can shoot to your side. I guess I just gotta be careful not to shoot your wings off or anything. Yeah, it's probably the first thing to cover in training day one.

Don't shoot the wing. Yeah, that's right. You'll get a black market. Your record that was that was a ten thirty at night. You said, yeah, I was ten thirty at night. Has decided it was time to bail. So

he climbed a six thousand feet and jumped out. Luckily, he had a parachute on and he landed about ten miles northwest of his destination, near the village of Eagles Amma or Eaglesham, which is actually pretty close when you could say, it was dark and he didn't have much in the way of navigational just like a compass, super lucky compass. Yeah, and that was so uh. He was seen parachuting in by a local farmer named David McClean. McClean found him on the ground wrestling with his parachute

and he had a very badly wrenched ankle. McClean was armed with a pitchfork and essentially took him took a prisoner. And how did he see him coming down? I'm not really sure. Maybe there was a moon that night, there must have been if he was navigating at that time of night by landmark, there must have been at least a half moon. There must have been good some good

moon light. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking I would expect. Also, if you heard a plane above, like you know, two planes kind of in hot pursuit above you, you might look up and then you might see something kind of pop out of one and think huh. And I don't know if he was on the ground by the time his plane crash. His plane crash very shortly after he bailed. Yeah, yeah, but there even in the distance, it must have been a kind of a big kaboo. Yeah, that that plane.

Have you seen the photos of his plane? It was pretty He did not survive that now not not so well. Uh, you fought a side about this farm where he um. He actually went to the where the plane wreckage side was. After after the homeguard came and got hass took him off his hands, he went over and he found a plane crash side and he had some parts in the bushes.

And then after after they had hauled all the rest of the wreckage away, he went back and got those and so he had those you had those around for a year or yeah, and I think he eventually trophies. Yeah. Yeah, he gave one or one or two away and I think some of the other one A couple of the other ones he sold. Yeah, part of Rudolph has his plane,

you know, very collectible. Yeah. So they hobbled back to his cottage, McLean's cottage, and they had a cup of tea and McClane contacted the Home Guard, who showed up shortly thereafter with some police. Has was operating under a different name at this point. Yeah, he said his name was Captain Alfred Horne. Then he needed to speak with the Duke of Hamilton's And in another account I read, he said he told the Home Guard guys, tell the

Duke of Hamilton's that I've arrived. He and but he was German, right, so he would have had a relatively thick accent. Uh yeah, I mean he spoke English fluently. He was actually raised in the English section of Alexandria, Egypt, so he did speak English. So do you but do you know about accent? I just like if you have a German accent accent in nine in England, people are going to be like, Okay, Mr Horn, I'll get right on that. I absolutely positive he had a fairly distinct accent.

He is speed, His English was good to speak. He evidently wasn't that good at interpreting English though, that was a difficulty for him for quite a while, which is weird. You know, whenever I've tried to tackle a foreign language, I always find understanding it it's easier for me than speaking.

It's it's interesting that some friends who are fluent in like a stupid amount of languages, and um, a couple of them have been fluent since birth in both languages, and for them it is hard to translate because they just think in both languages. So it's like a concept and you whatever in which you're speaking in They just know the words that they're trying to think, but they have to actually really think about what the word for

that in the other languages. Yeah, they have to actually take a step back and say, Okay, but if I were having this conversation in this other language, that lamp would be called that other word, you know. So I I wonder if there was something like that going on. Yeah, I don't know, but anyway, that's so there were there were some communication difficulties through this whole thing back to

the Home Guard. They took them away to their little h Q, and according to one source that I found, there was actually a reception committee of military intelligence officers waiting at the air strip of Hamilton's estate. I only heard that in one place, so I'm not sure if that's true or not. So apparently it has captured by the Home Guard was a little bit of a hitch in their plans. It might be if they had indeed

lured him under false pretenses to Britain. Maybe they were planning on just secretly spiriting him away and never telling the public anything. But because he got captured by the Home Guard, Yeah, and maybe that they were actually planning on trying to work something out, and that wouldn't necessarily be in popular opinion, So you would kind of want to take it slow. Well, I was, I was, actually

Joe said that. I was like, Well, maybe they're trying to work something out of him with fists and do it completely under the radar and nobody would ever know where they go. There's I mean, there's a lot of reasons that you would not want to publicize that that guy was in your country. Yeah, yeah, probably Hitler would have kept it quiet too. It was embarrassing for him. Yeah, uh so, yeah, the whole thing could have been kept a secret, except books. He didn't make his target, so yeah,

he got captured anyway. Supposedly it was this reception committee that caught up with Hess in Home Guard custody and they persuaded the Home Guard people to finally let him go, and so they took him to mary Hill Barracks near Glasgow, Scotland, and then the Duke of Hamilton did arrived the next day to see has and that's when it has revealed his true identity and said I think the words were quote,

I'm here to save the world, something melodramatic like that. Yeah, but he wanted to he wanted to work out a peace deal. This is one thing I love about Germans days. They're so direct. It's I'm not gonna work up to us. I'm going to save everybody. Let me do that now. I'm not not really going to save the world, just Germany in England. Well, that's all the world that he

cares about pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. One of the concessions that he apparently uh put forward was that Germany would withdraw from Western Europe except for parts of France like Alsassin, Lorraine they were going to keep. Uh, they would allow Britain to keep its overseas possessions and in return they wanted a free hand in Eastern Europe and Russia. They

would also try to mediate a settlement between Britain and Italy. Um. And also they said that they would buy the full output of Allied war industries production while they were converting back to peacetime uses to help avoid any economic downturn. So I have a lot of problems with this, but I'm gonna wait until we get into the very section because there's all kinds of holes in this for me. Yeah. Well, apparently Has had a full on, full blown peace proposal

which was eventually I think presented to Churchill. He met with the Duke of Hamilton. Churchill did that is and they met with the war cabinet, and apparently there was no interest in a peace deal. Uh. They didn't tell his Has this for a while. Well, I mean it's not surprising to me that Britain didn't think there was there was any reason for a peace deal, right, I mean, the whole reason that everybody was going to war was like because the Nazis are bad and we don't like

what they're doing. Right, It wasn't oh, they're coming to get us, so we have to defend ourselves. It was more of a proactive approach. So it makes sense to me that they wouldn't necessarily I mean that would if they did have a peace deal, it would just basically give tacit consent to what was going on in the rest of the world the Nazis controlled exactly because I mean that's why Britain declared wars, because they had had a treaty with Poland, you know that one defense the

other well Poland was invaded. Well you know, they had to kind of they had to actually do something about it, and so it's like that whole sense of honor. But at this time the war was not really going that great for Britain, right, you know, speaking of Poland. When I was doing the research, one of the things that I always am really interested in, and this is just a weird thing about me, is posters from different eras, and one of the ones that was in Britain at

the time was the Polish flag. And you know, it's in the typical nineteen forties illustration style. It's all torn up and it just says Poland first to fight. Really really was really well done, but it was just so iconic for the area. They're so cool some of them. Some of them are a little offensive though. There are some serious stereotypes going on, and some of those old posters,

I will agree, they are very very brutal. Yeah. You know who actually produced some interesting World War two propaganda cartoons, Dr Seuss. Yeah, some of them are seriously racist. Yeah, almost, and yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, especially especially like the one with Uncle Sam's in an alley. He's back and he's got all these these these grass they're coming after him, and they have little Japanese faces on them, and it is very very stereotypical. But let's get away from that.

I have another question, because this is something I've also never understood about Germany, is why didn't they quit when they were ahead? I've never understood and this is maybe just well, yeah, why did they Why did they decide to do that? Why did they continue to push on

into North Africa? I mean they had they had essentially rolled through a huge part of Western Europe, and if they had just stopped and sat, that's how countries have been formed for thousands of years is we took it over and we just stayed and eventually everybody went, okay, well that's yours. We don't like it, but that's yours. Why did why did the Why didn't the Romans stop when they were ahead? Well I don't understand that either. That's why I'm asking is I've never understood why they

didn't say, here's the question we took Europe. Just a question for a while. When you go like gamble, do you stop when you're it? Yeah? Do you actually? Absolutely? I have a system. Okay, okay, cheating doesn't count. No, I have X amount of money. I'm going to gamble, and that money's in one pocket, and if I win, I put it in another pocket. And when the original bank is empty, if there's money left over, I walk out.

That's not stopping. But but if I win. If I let's say I'm on a slot machine and I hit and I win a hunter bucks on a nickel slot, I'll say, all right, well now my bank, I can't go below let's say eight bucks. So I'm I'm continually setting a bar that I will not drop below. So I'm always add so I do stop when I'm ahead.

I think the thought process is that you like, okay, so, yeah they were ahead because they had like a bunch in their winning pocket, right, but they still had money in their other pockets, so it still felt like I'm winning even though you know, okay, well, if I gamble this like one nickel, strategically, you know what. Gambling is not the right pa betaphor. It is such a big area that strategically the resources don't make sense to me.

It's something that I've never understood. I think. I think people have a hard time stopping on their heads, and that's probably what I mean. Hitler had gone a little. They also think you get delusional. It could have been that. Yeah, he definitely did bite off more than you can chew. You should have looked at the lessons of history. I mean, Napoleon didn't fare that well in Russia either, did he. Nobody fares well in Russia. Russian has barely fared well.

The joke is like, come to Russia and our country will fight you. The actual terrain just kills people. The people of Russia don't have to do anything they have. There is a lot of strategic depth there too, to surrender a lot of territory, and oh yeah, you can continue to just give and give and give in the ground, we'll just eat up the troops that are invading. Yeah, I'm sorry, I took us way off track that okay, yeah,

we are way off track, by the way. So far, I haven't mentioned what happened back in Germany when Hitler found out about all this. This was a day after this is eleven. Hass had given his adjutant, a guy named Carl Heinz Pinch, a letter to deliver to Hitler the day after has left and also to basically tell him what he had done. So Pinch delivered his report. Apparently Hitler blew his stack. He delivered it directly to Hitler. Yeah he did, ok, Yeah, and he was rather upset.

And it was unfortunate for for Pinch because you know, it was like, you know, shoot the messenger and all that stuff. He was arrested and jailed, and also a lot of other people around Hess were also arrested. Uh. Pinch was later released, but then he was sent to the Eastern Front to fight the Russians, and so he really wasn't released. Yeah, basically a big step down for him. Is the allegation that Pinch knew what the letter contained, Like,

did he know that Hass had left? Yeah? Yeah, I think that it wasn't just like, Okay, I'm going to bed give this letter to Hitler tomorrow. Well I don't think it was just him giving the letter to Hitler. I think he also gave him an oral report basically said you know, Hass has gone to I can understand why you would you would arrest him. Then, I mean it's more than yeah. Yeah, yeah, totally, totally is true.

I just wanted to be clear on that. It wasn't just like literally he was like, I don't know, Hess just gave me this letter to give to you. Yeah, I don't know what's in it. Yeah yeah, but apparently and decides which Even if he hadn't said anything like that, I'm sure that would have been suspicions. Yeah. Yeah. Pinch was then captured by the Russia. Oh yeah, I was captured by the Russian, tortured, tortured, held in captivity for like ten years or something like some crazy eleven page

like a story or something. It was a page I don't know, confession or just telling all he knew or whatever that was eventually found in the historical archives many million years later. So Hitler said at the at the time that he felt like it was a huge betrayal because he was such a good friend. He also said, as I said earlier, that he thought that Hess had just gone over the edge, and again Winston Churchill agreed with him on that one. They didn't agree on a

whole lot. Yeah, and also Hitler apparently gave orders that Hess was to be shot on site if he returned to Germany. Well back to Hesson in Scotland. He was shuffled around to various places, eventually wind up spending thirteen months in a place called camp Z. He was in the Tower of London for a while. Yeah. Before that, yeah, I was. I just didn't want to give a laundry list of all the places. When I noticed that, I was like, oh, he's another one of the because there

was only two Germans that were in the tower. Ever it was one of them. Yeah, lucky him. Camps He was a mansion in the town of Mitchett outside of London. Um kind of south west is love London. And by the way, I'm sure I'll get at least one email telling me that it's actually pronounced mitch m I did look it up on the on the Internet and supposedly it is pronounced mitchett. So I hope that's right. Well, yeah,

if I'm wrong, let me know. So at this point has really saw himself as a diplomatic emissary, and uh, he demanded to be sent back to Germany while the British didn't. Asylum. That's interesting. What's not asylum? What is it called, like diplomatic community or something. But you know, it's like that. The problem was has swore the whole time that Hitler never had any clue that he was

going to leave and go to Britain. And so because of that, because he essentially hadn't really been sent by the German government as an official emissary, Churchill in the Gang felt like, well, we can keep him. Yeah, I mean I think I understand that empirically, but I understand Hess's argument too. Right, He's like third in command of the of the German government, so he sent himself on a mission and they're saying no, no, no, the German

government didn't sent you. But I well, the problem is is that his position was a puppet position, had absolutely no power he had been progressively pushed farther and farther out of the power structure of the regime. But you we all know that guy, right, the guy who the Dwight shrut of of the group, right, that's you know, assistant to the manager. And he keeps saying, yeah, I'm the assistant manager, and it's like no, no, no, you're

the assistant to the manager. You keep getting pushed out and told no, but you think that you are so much more. So I can understand his argument. It may mean that he went loopy, but or it might be overstepped his bounds. Yeah, yeah, it might be he thought this was a way to really, you know, like he thought Hitler wanted this. Yeah, he did. He thought he was doing a good favor for his good buddy. Yeah.

He was extremely loyal to Hitler. I mean, and even though Hitler said he thought this was a betrayal, I don't think Hess saw it that way at all. He was trying to do him a favor. It's possible, and it's alleged that maybe Hitler didn't think that at first. But I know, we're going to get into all of this stuff, so well, yeah, there are there are people

who say otherwise. Yeah, I was just going to throw out there that it's also possible that, you know, Hitler said off handedly, yeah, I totally want peace with Britain and didn't remember it at all, And then you know, has starts planning and plotting and thinking, oh my gosh, this is going to be the best surprise for Hitler. When I he's he's gonna love it, and Hitler's like, what do you mean I said that. I never said that.

Oh yeah, oh, I was joking. Due remember that time you bedazzled an entire fighter plane for me and I said I didn't really want that same situation. Yeah, alright, So anyway, having a hard time, I identify with hats I'm sorry because you like the bedazzled things. Yeah, it's true and steel planes and history, certainly it hasn't been successful. History would have turned out a little differently. Oh absolutely. Yeah. Anyway, back to Camp Z. Hass was there for thirteen months.

As I said, he was, of course, I'm sure being interrogated. Yeah, at one point he tried to kill himself, I throw himself over a staircase railing because he apparently he was depressed. He was pretty disappointed that his peace plan hadn't worked out, didn't work out. He was a prisoner. He was like he couldn't be friends with his friends anymore, probably being tortured family, you know, since he wasn't going to see his family again. Yeah, I'm sure there was a lot

to be depressed about. Yeah. He might have also felt that the patriotic duty to kill himself before the British from wrong. Too many secrets out of him. Unfortunately he didn't succeed, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it. He just broke his leg pretty pretty severely too. He had to be in traction for like twelve weeks. Yeah, that would not be fun. No fun. Yeah, just a note to our listeners. Throwing yourself down a staircase not the best or over staircase railing not the best way

to do it. No, not really. It's only two or three steps. You're not going to hurt you. Yeah, it was. It was more than that. He might twist your ankle, yeah, wrench it severely. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, After he recovered from from his leg thing, Hess was sent to a military hospital in South Wales. He stayed in his military hospital till the end of the war and apparently that that

was a good place. It was was a hospital not only for military members but also for POWs, so it was a fairly secure place, not like your ordinary hospital, and actually required few regards than Cam's. He did. He tried to kill himself when he was there, too, didn't he He did. He tried to stab himself with a bread knife. I didn't work out so well either, apparently, jokes. Two stitches, two stitches to sew it up. Man, My

brother busted open his chin and it took more than that. Yeah, that was a half heart of the tamp I don't. I could never stab myself to that. That would be a hard way to That would be tough. People do it, But that would be hard, I think people. Yeah, you must, you really would want to have to die and some serious resolve. Yeah, Well, as you know, in the end, Germany surrendered. You guys did know that, right? Yeah? I thought they won. I thought we were speaking. That's wrong.

That's not real life. No, it's not real life. I might be from an alternate universe. You probably are. We wondered that about. Oh I'm sorry. Also, it's burn Stein, not bernstein Stein. After the surrender in October nineteen, he was sent to Nuremberg to face the International Military Tribunal ak the nerd Broke trials. You've heard of those, I'm sure, yeah, pretty well. Now he was charged with conspiracy to commit crimes, crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, all

crimes against peace. Yeah, he was trying to make peace. Yeah. Well, anyway, Luckily for him, since he sat out most of the war, it was really pretty hard to get convictions on on the war crimes and crimes against humanity. But he was found guilty of conspiracy and again crimes against peace and sentenced to life in prison. Apparently the Soviet Soviet judge in the trial wanted to him to die by hanging. They had a real thing against him, they really did. Yeah, yeah,

it is, but yeah, they really didn't like hess. And anyway, the French judge wanted to give him twenty years in prison, which is probably a little more fair. Correct me if I'm wrong. Nobody else got life, Um, there were or was it there was a couple that got life who didn't live very longer. There were there were three that got life. Of the seven people that we were sent to prison, three of them got life, and then the other four got fifteen or twenty years depending. I don't

remember which ones. Yeah, most of them got released early except Perhus. He wants to spend out prison in West Berlin, which was he's exclusively for the seven prisoners who were convicted but not put death. So this this prison was a fairly large one. It has six hundred cells, or I should say it had six hundred cells. It's not there anymore. But they only had seven prisoners. But only seven prisoners. Yeah, they were these former high racking Nazis.

That was run by the four powers, that's the US, Britain, France and the USSR. And they also applied the guards and along about nineteen sixty six there were only three prisoners left and spanned out. As I said before, I had six hundred cells. Yeah, we'd be rattling around that place. Yeah. In October nineteen sixty six, Albert Spear and Baldard vont S finished their sentences and they left. And so from that time on until his death in nineteen eight seven,

Rudolfs was the only inmated spend out prison. Twenty one years all by yourself in this prison, and you can't talk to anybody. Uh, he could have very limited visits, visits with his family, but there were guards. He could talk to the guards, but the guards were constantly rotating in and out from different countries and stuff. But I also remember that there was there was sanctions on what

he could talk about. Now. He wasn't allowed to talk about his piece mission or certain things about what he had done while he was with the Nazi Party, Remember there was. It was just it was strange to me the clampdown on certain topics. Yeah, no, it really is true. He was not just allowed to talk freely. Well, I mean, did not not apply to all of the prisoners. You know, I don't know that. I just sort of researched this

from the hest point of view. I'm sure. I'm sure there were there were a lot of restrictions on also in their behavior. But even if even if it was that way for everybody, it probably didn't end up being his extreme because they had other German prisoners to associate with, so they at least had some some shared common bond, whereas when it's a set of guards who rotate every year, you can't make any personal connections. Yeah, not really. I mean, there were a few longer term employees like he had.

I had a friendship with the warden at one time. I'll tell you more about that later. And that was interesting, but I imagine it was probably a lonely existence anyway. And even Winston Churchill, who was really no friend of Nazis, once said that he felt that the treatment of Pass was really overly harsh, especially considering that he had come to Scotland in good faith to try to broke her

a peace. But and and there was the other three powers had talked about releasing him and then said they will be willing to do so, but the Soviets always vetoted. It's because again they just didn't like in them. I'm guessing it required a majority vote, yeah, and required unanimous vote, yeah, and so and so anyway, that's pretty much the end of it. He died in um by hanging. He hung himself, although again that's a mystery. So but our mystery right now is did he go of his own volition or

did Hitler order him to go piece mission mission? And there's there's still some debate about that. I mean, generally the historians agree that he just wanted his own and that Hitler was really upset about it. But there's since there's some evidence that maybe he didn't just decide to go on his own, or maybe he maybe it was his idea, Hitler signed off on it, maybe Hitler ordered him to do it. And the other thing is what made them think that this was a good idea? Yeah,

I mean really that. Yeah, so we're gonna tackle that first, and then we'll tackle the death. We'll tackle of the mystery of the suicide or murder. Yeah. Second, so the theories, Uh, well, he wanted his own and after all, this is what hass always said, and that's what Hitler said. Uh. And Hitler supposedly did get very furious when he heard about this flight. It doesn't sound like some guy who knew it advance. And plus the night that Hess landed in Scotland,

the lutwaffe bombed London very heavily. Not really something you're gonna do if you're trying to put forward, you know, peace feelers. Okay, so I'll play devil's gude forget on that is that's a great way to distract from your secret peace emissary coming to the country's too. Yeah. Yeah, you're going to assume that the r r af is going to be kind of tied up with that. I'm not so interested in this one bogie over there. So that's, uh, that's one theory that The other theory is that he

went with Hitler's permission. And actually I read an article that was written I think in three or forty I can't remember when, and I forgot the magazine it was published yet. But according to this theory, just the one that was in three parts. The article was all continuous informent we looked at, but it was broken into three parts. Yeah, yeah, this was I found this on a bit of outlay and issue. Yeah, I don't I don't know how supported

this stuff was. But essentially the idea was is that is that he had to have had Hitler's sign off on the whole thing, because otherwise, what's the point. You can come before you can you can talk about making other concessions you want, but Hitler doesn't want to do that. Well, you know you're not going to get very far. There was an article about this. Did you want to say something, No,

I was just I was just agreeing with that. I mean, that does stick out to me as it's not as though this is one of the situations where Hess would come back and say, listen, the Brits are being really reasonable. You're going to kind of look like an idiot if you don't accept it. Hitler, it would have been really easy for Hitler to say, no, I don't want to do any of that, thanks um, versus going with some of you know, knowing what Hitler is willing to give,

that makes for a much more powerful situation. Yeah, I definitely think that it increases your outs of success because, frankly, although I guess there is something to be said for if he was close enough to Hitler, it wouldn't be very hard for him to say, so what you know, what's the deal breaker for you? Yeah, what's important to you to keep? And what's what are you willing to give up? He could have just in casual conversation over the year that he was planning his trip, right, Yeah,

you could have done that. Yeah. Yeah. My whole thing with Hitler had to know because I mean Hess is quoted as saying Hitler is the party, and the party is Hitler, and other statements that equated to him believing that that the fear was God, that he was so powerful and he was had to be followed that. I just can't see him suddenly turning away and doing something without the permission. But he didn't. I'm sorry to be trampling all over this because I know we have more

information in this theory. But he didn't see it as treason, right. He saw it as he thought like it was a surprise party for Hitler. But but his but his personality never supported that. They called him the brown mouse, meaning he was meek and mild, and he was only brown because he was wearing the brown shirt. He didn't have

any initiative. That's why for the three years prior, every body else had been, you know, jockeying for position, and he slowly got pushed out and he was given a made up honorific title, like the guy had no gumption of his own. Yeah, he was. He was definitely not not not a hard as hard ass like like say Hitler goring those people. He wanted to serve the fear,

He wanted to serve the cause. That's that's the impression that But I guess my my counter to that is it he thought he was and you know, but I could have been completely misdirected. I am not disagreeing with that at all, And I totally hear what you're saying. This is one of those amicable moments. I totally hear you're saying that. You know, but he he wouldn't have

had he wouldn't have taken that initiative. His character didn't show the right Yeah, but it is possible that he went went there entirely on his own and he was just kind of delusional and actually thought he was going to succeed. But back to the Hitler thing, where Hitler had there is some evidence that Hitler didn't well at advance. Has his Rudolf has his son Wolf has? Yeah. Now I wrote a long article about this that my first child Wolf find it's a cool names. Your last name, No,

I wouldn't do it. Well, she'll have a different last name. We're gonna make it up. Oh anyway, Yeah, the Wolf sideways. Sideways is a hard name to plan for it. Yeah. Yeah. Back to mctor Wolf's evidence, Okay, uh. He says that Hitler and hess met for four hours on May tenth, just not just just a few hours before he left to fly to Scotland, and Hess, as as we have said,

was pretty much sideline in German. Germany by now, and he really wasn't involved with the war effort or with foreign affairs, and so I'm finding it hard to believe hit would have carved out four hours for him if it didn't actually involve the war or foreign affairs. Oh. I can totally tell you what they were doing. They were watching the latest Michael Bay transformers movement. Those are four hours long. That's a good point. Lord of the Rings.

They were watching the Hobbit. Yeah, that's an easy four hour time commitment. Some time off, No, no, wait, this was the nineteen Oh they didn't have that yet, No, damn it. Yeah, I think it. I think it was right around this time that Tolkien was writing Lord of the Rings, wasn't it. Yeah? Pretty close. Yeah. Okay, So hess was involved with foreign affairs in the war. No he wasn't. He wasn't. He was involved with more domestic stuff.

Oh I see that. Okay, Yeah, okay, got it. Why would hit like at the time unless it wasn't one of those things. I mean, he's busy planning Operation Barbara Rosa and and you know, the bombing of London and everything else. And we're saying Hitler didn't have any kind of love for friends. Oh no, No, I mean he did. I'm sure, but I don't know that he would have had four hours to spend with Hess just hanging out when there was so much more. He's had a lot of work to do, a lot of politicking to do.

You take twenty minutes and you hang out with your buddy and you have a drink. You don't take four hours. Yeah. I get where this is. This doesn't prove anything, but but it's interesting and it's Uh. The next thing is as you mentioned us, As we mentioned earlier, Karl Heinz Pinch, the adjutant to deliver the letter together, who was captured. They and a Storian came across what was his name?

Mattias discovered this document in the Russian State Archives, written by Pinch, was handwritten, and according to what he said about the encounter with Hitler, Pinch said it quote Hitler calmly listened to my report and just missed me without comment unquote. Yeah. Pinch said that Hitler had known about the flight plan for a long time and so that that was the impression that he had. So when where

did the maddest hell story come from? Uh? You know, I'm thinking that might have been cooked up to reassure the Japanese and the Italians that Hitler wasn't trying to stab him in the back by making peace with Britain. And I think that's why has was loyal to the loyal to the end and always settle along that it was his idea. His family also never got any kind of retribution from the Nazi Party. They never never win

after him. That's the other thing is that, Yeah, a lot of people surrounding Hess, even like his astrologer and all those people. A fact, all kinds of astrologers were rounded up and arrested because that was was really into that he was into astrology and all that stuff. Yeah, I know, I know, I'm reading my signs all the time. So all kinds of people suffered retaliation except for Hess's family. Actually, Hitler personally intervened to make sure that nothing happened to them. Yeah. Yeah,

that's hard. Again, you know, it's it's hard if you're really good friends with somebody, you don't necessarily want to see their wife and kids heart just because he made a bad choice. But I don't know that Hitler necessarily strikes me as that kind of guy. Yeah. Again, his character didn't reflect that kind of behavior that we know of. Yeah, yeah, but I don't know. It could be that that just you know, pastimes and all that. You know, I'm gonna me to look after his family. It might just be that.

So so none of this definitively proves anything, although bites document is is pretty interesting. Well, it came out in they printed that with Der Spiegel. That came out in two thousand eleven in an article in Der Spiegel. Yeah, we've talked about that Mexic. Okay, so it's like what his journal or something that they found. I think it was more on the lines of a confession to the Russians. It was it was they so the Russians used to

like to make people right, these long confessions denouncing everything. Yeah, but that's my problem with it. Well, but that's that's it because there if you ever read any of them, they're always crazy long, and they always have a very set style and certain verbiaginum. And it's I believe this falls right to that category. Yeah, it's it's almost as if they told the guy what to write. You know,

they might have Well, it doesn't using the same book. Yeah, it doesn't mean that everything in there was a lie, but but you base it on the truth. Yeah. Anyway, after the war, some other people gave you talked about various things. And then there were two other high ranking Nazi Party members hanging with Hitler at that time when he received the letter in the news that has had left to go to Scotland, and they said that Hitler

wasn't angry at all. Hitler's vallet said after the war that Hitler's behavior at the time indicated to him that he must have done advance. He too said Hitler wasn't upset at all. Who did you say that too? That was his valet he had. I don't know if it was a reporter or who he said it to. All of it he said that after the war, um the valet did say he was actually afraid to ask Hitler if he had known ahead of time. He didn't ask him, but he said his behavior just indicated to him that

Hitler was not mad. So here's my other problem with the with this, with this theory in particular that Hitler knew is we talked I started to talk about this earlier. Is the concessions of peace that he was supposedly willing to give Germany had just spent the last two years marching south through uh Norway and then into France, and they would have kept going. No, not nor what's um, what's the other one? Just north of France? I can't thank you Netherland in Belgium, that's the That's where I

got the end. But they had spent two years working their way south through all of that, and they would have kept going into Spain if Franco hadn't been just jerking them around the whole time and saying yes, no, yes, no games. But my point is, if they've just spent all that time and effort to secure it, they've wiped out the local governments, they've installed all their own people, why would they then suddenly say, you know what does leave, It's cool, you can have it at We just wanted

to check the place out. That doesn't make any sense from well, from a wartime perspective to me. You know, I don't know that they expected to occupy all of France forever. They did intended to keep assassin Lorraine even but they were going to withdraw from the rest of it um so that they didn't really need to be running France. I mean, they could have if they had that their their chunk of Poland and other parts of

Eastern Europe, that was all they really needed. Well, but they also what they would do those like in in France, they moved in and they put in their own people. And then eventually when they took over all of France, it's the the Vichy government, the Vicy government. Yeah, they those guys were technically still running the country, but they knew that they had to keep the Germans happy. And the Germans did this like, you can live and do what we say, or we can kill you and put

our own people in, which is way easier. And that's what they did. So why would they do all of that? You know, it might be that some of this stuff was misreported. It might it might have been basically, we're not going to withdraw from Western Europe, but we will leave you alone. We'll buy will buy your your munition supply, you know, for the sake of your economy, and we'll leave your overseas possessions alone, you know. And so that might have been all the concessions they actually plan to make.

I mean, you don't plan for the peace to happen, right, You install your government and you say Okay, we're good here, but you know how valuable this is to us, and we are so committed to peace that we are willing to give you this thing that obviously we've fought a lot for. So you understand how much we're willing to give up for peace. That's how much we wanted. Right And if they say no, you've got your thing, you're covered. It's fine. You still have your country there that you've

taken over. If they say yes, great, you've got this huge piece of leverage to say great, you're gonna give us pretty much the rest of Europe. Yeah, it's just there's there's sunk cost for what they did was so large. It's just so much, such a such a thing to walk away from. They didn't really expand huge resources taking over France. It was actually a pretty quick thing. Well, but then they spent a bunch of money, you know, bomb in Britain and then defending France. I mean a

lot of munitions. And maybe maybe what I'm responding to is more what happened after that, for all everything that took place, But it just seems like it was such a big friggan investment. I don't think. I don't I

just don't. I don't think so, okay, I mean, in my mind, you know, strategically, it makes a lot more sense to be willing to give up something that is appears to be very valuable to you that you may or may not actually care about in order to be able to leverage that to get you more things that you actually do care about in the future. It could be I don't know, maybe a horrible I don't know.

That means I'm the guy who will never back down. Nope, I made it here, and I'm the one who will be like, oh, yeah, it totally looks like I care about this jewelry. You can have it, but I'm going to take your first child. Devon for everybody who doesn't know, just made the creepiest big eye face at me never having children. Now, now I'm kind of leaning towards Hitler New Yeah, I think, so are there I mean, are there any other choices? Is it just the two? Kind

of those two? That's that's the question that everybody's been wondering for all these decades, and it really is a historical kind of mystery. And then, of course my other question was, how could they have thought this was gonna work. How could they have thought this is gonna be a good idea? And that's what gets this to the whole M I sixth ankle Oh, I thought it was because Hitler was a vegetarian. It might have been that to us was a vegetarian also, he was he was like

really new age and all that plants are bad for you. Yeah. But the theory about m I six is is that Hitler and the Germans were putting out some feelers towards influential Britishers in the early nineteen forty one on nineteen regarding peace negotiations. And of course there was the Anglo German Friendship Society or whatever that was called. Yeah, yeah, right off the tone, Yeah, And so they were there was just so this like aristocracy to aristocracy, you know,

talking back and forth. And Germany eventually proposed a meeting on neutral ground, and that was rejected by the British, as the story goes, and so they finally offered to send a delicate to England, and they proposed a guy named Ernst William Bull as a delicate and there was no response from England about this. Yeah, I'm guessing that because they were busy dealing with the Luthwaffa. Yeah, that's probably it, but they were doing a good job of

playing it hard to get Eventually Hitler. They were getting kind of nervous about this because this is actually kind of important to Hitler, I think, to actually not have that second front with Britain when he went after the Russians. So Hitler came up with the idea of sending a really big Nazi to England, somebody with a lot of stature, somebody who was close to Hitler, who could readibly speak for Hitler. And who else would that be? Rudolf Hess?

I mean, he wasn't he wasn't really important to the war effort, and he was highly expendable actually, all things considered, it was kind of Yeah. Obviously the war continued on without him, without a hitch quite well, yeah, for a number of years at least he actually has. Yeah. Hess was not really violent. I don't think he was really into the whole war thing. No, he was just supporting

the cause. Yeah, I know that well. And and and you know the Germany and Germany of the sense had a good reason to feel some grievance after the way they've been treated after World War One. I'm not saying they were justified and anything, No, but they I can I understand why there was a lot of angry Germans

after World War One. Definitely. Yeah, what actually was happening is apparently, so the theory goes, and there was a little evidence to support this, we're not going to find out for a little while, but they were actually negotiating with the British Secret Service and not members of the royal family or the British aristocracy like they thought they were. It was a game, it was it was rude, it

was a setup. Yeah. Yeah, it sounds like they just wanted to get their hands on a high ranking Nazi and just interrogate the heck out of them, which is probably what they did. Yeah. The only the only qualm with that I have with this, and it's it stems back to that friendship society. The things that I have read are that as soon as war broke out, the friendship society was dissolved. That's what I heard too. We're yeah, we're not friends anymore. You like blew up my house

and stuff, So no, we're not friends. Absolutely, Well, obviously you're not going to be overt, but there was still context between the British aristocracy and the German aristocracy. When if you have a personal friendship with somebody and they're saying, dude, I'm sorry, but my fear blew your house up, They're not going to be like, yeah, I know you ordered the bombs. You're gonna say, oh, thank you, I'm so sorry,

you know. But also it's underground. You know, it's very easy to even if it had been totally dissolve, it would be very easy for a member of m I six to say, oh no, no, I'm part of this thing. I know that you think that we're dissolved, but just kidding, we're still underground. So that's a good point. I hadn't

thought about the clandestine side of the society still. So that's why you need to meet us in Scotland, not you know, at Scotland Yard or London Proper or you know, anything like that, and don't follow the loot swop into town. Yeah you don't want to do that. Let's go talk about this, so anyway, do you guys have any favorite theories there? I think we new Hitler didn't know they were killing I think he did. I know that has just stood by that he did it independently, but I

just I can't buy it. Yeah, I think Hitler knew, but I also do give some credence. I wouldn't It wouldn't surprise me to find out that my six had something to do with it too. The Bridge did pulled off a lot of ingenious plans. They really would have been a good one. Yeah, they did some amazing stuff. Fact, there was another one that I stumbled across. I won't mention it now in the course of my research. Is this That's another interesting little mystery. We'll talk about that.

You know, they were really crafty, they were really good. Well, when your backs against the wall, you do whatever it takes. Yeah, I know. They did a great job of turning all the all the German agents against each other against Germany too.

They totally controlled their entire network in England. I also think that part of it though, is that, like we said, I was saying before, is that the one thing I like about the Germans is they're just it's this and we're going to hear and how could you think it would be anything else? And are like, uh, nobody else thinks that way, dude, but we'll totally use it against you. Thank you. Yeah, the Germans in World War Two actually did not practice good trade craft when he was buying,

not at all. Yeah. Oh, anyway, so so yeah, so I'm thinking that they wouldn't have done it Unlessen received encouragement from Britain, and that I think probably came from m I six. Might have come from saying members of the aristocracy, but I think it probably came from m I six. Yeah, let's get on to our other mystery, which is how he died. He died in August nine seven and spend out prison. Cause of death was suicide

by asphyxiation. The prison had like that garden. It had like a courtyard in the middle of the garden, and it had a small summer house that has used as a reading room. Oh that's nice. I mean it's nice to think, right, you kind of think, well, he was in jail for a really, really long time. He just had to sit in his cell the whole time. But I guess there was this whole entire complex that he was nearly one in. Yeah, so it's nice to know that they gave him a little place where he could

read and stuff. I think that as the years went by, they got more relaxed. You know, at first it was very very stern, very regimented. You can only be visited for like thirty minutes a month by anybody. Of course, the guards had to be present, and he couldn't talk about a whole list of topics. And that eventually that got relaxed somewhat, you would assume. Yeah, But anyway, back

to his death. He uh took an electrical extension cord and wrapped one end around a window latch in the summer house and then the other around his neck, and he hung himself. That doesn't sound pleasant or easy, It doesn't. Yeah, he was ninety three years old. He liked to be a ripe old age. That's and that is exactly where the conspiracy comes from. Is why does a man at the age of nine three suddenly decide that he's got

to take his own I understand it. I totally, I totally get this, and I don't think that this is a conspiracy in any way, shape or form, but I know that's where it comes from. Weight he was super old. Why would he do that at this point? Yeah, Well he did that. There there was one thing going on. His lawyer and his family had been campaigning for a long time for him to get released, because everybody else has been released. I mean, and several of them actually

we had life sentences and they were released early. Has for everything he did. He did do some bad things, but he wasn't as nearly as monstrous as some of those other guys were, especially seeing as how he was out of the war for four years, he couldn't have

been involved in all of that other stuff. Yeah. But the thing about it is is every time the issue came up to Sylviet's, as I said previously, always videoed the idea and they might have still been mad about Barbarossa, and maybe they figured Hess was part of the planning of that. I'm not sure that he was. Probably not. I mean, I know he was aware of it, but awareness is not responsibility. Yeah. But the thing about the Sylvius too is the Russians are still mad at us

over World War Two. They really are. I mean, then we let them bleed for years before we finally did something about it. And think I think that some of them at least don't really like us, you know. Yeah, So I'm not totally surprised that the sylviet has had a grudge against him. But also SPANDO was located in West Berlin, which gave the Sylviets a really nice opportunity to send spies in for a looxie. Some of those

guards maybe weren't just straight up guards. Yeah, that's kind of a shame to keep one well West Berlin, and they wanted to actually be able to go in and look around and gather intelligence. And so being able to being able to send your personnel to spandau in the commune from the border to the prison, they could take a diversion and look around, is that what you're getting in and look around, maybe maybe pick up stuff from spies,

from dead drops, things like that. Yeah, and I when you said that, I took it as something at the prison, which it makes sense. But that makes a whole lot more sense, I get it. Yeah. Yeah, so they could have it could have been totally just for espionage. And it's kind of a shame to keep this one guy locked up for twenty one extra years. But he was a tool at that point. Yeah, and so that match that might be one of the reasons why they kept insisting that did not be released. Things began to change

in Night seven. Michail Robachov was in power relationship were thawing out a little bit between the East and the West, and the Sylviets began to express a bit more I guess, receptivity to the idea of letting Hess go. And there was a report published again in their Spiegel in April nineteen eighty seven that said Garbagehov was now taking the view that releasing Hess would be seeing worldwide as a

quote gesture of humanity unquote. Now I'm sure that I'm sure that that remark was read by everybody in the British, French and American intelligence services UM, and some people believe this might have set off alarm bells in the British Secret Service. Yeah why why, Well, we'll get to that in a sect. But from Hess this point of view, if Russia is finally going to agree to let you go, he might have actually been just a few weeks or months from freedom, and even though he didn't have a

hell of a lot longer to live. You know, if you've been locked up all those years, wouldn't getting out at least and being free to look around and take in the world and you know all that stuff, wouldn't that be a worthwhile thing? Do you think he knew though that he was going to get out, that it was possible that he was going to get out, or I mean, would that necessarily have been communicated to him? Is there any proof that it was communicated to him.

He did get to read the papers and stuff, but I don't know if the stuff that was about him or I mean they did. Yeah, so he might not have found out, but he was by this time. He for years he didn't have any any visits from his fan, but he started having regular visits from his family, So I'm guessing that sometimes I think it's reasonable to assume

that he did know. Yeah, I think that's sometime between April and August, he probably had at least want to visit from his lawyer and his family, and they probably and they probably said that the hey, good news, he might be getting out, and even a month of freedom after forty years of prison would be the best month ever. Even if all you could do was get pushed around in a wheelchair by your family, at least you're with your family and not that freaking prison anymore. I don't know.

You think there's the fear of being released, that's a that's a common thing. I think there's a little bit of the fear of being released. There's a bit of the fear of perception, not knowing how people will react to you, to going to going home to a place where people think that you are a traitor, that you're a monster, being labeled as a Nazi who you know, committed crimes against humanity, whether you were convicted of that or not. I mean, I think there's a lot of things.

I mean, I guess it's possible. I guess this This would be for the he committed suicide argument, that not only is there the he lost the will to live, it's also it does coincide with the fact that he might have the possibility of getting out, and that could be a really, really scary thing to him. He could have just decided no, I want don't want to Yeah,

And there's no way to keep yourself right. You can't just be like, I'm just gonna stay in jail, thanks though, I'm going to hold on to the bars and you can't drag me out. Yeah, you can't say that, because that works so well for not going here, So that I mean, I guess that could have been a It is possible. I mean, people do lose the will to live, you know, and especially he was pretty feeble by this time. Maybe he just decided to just uh and he had

committed an attempted suicide in the past when he was younger. Yeah, and so and uh so, maybe he just felt like, even if I get out, now, what kind of a life am I going to have? I can't I can barely even walk, you know, because he was very, very frail at that point. You would be right, yeah, yeah, again, I think there is something to be said for saying he doesn't know what he's coming to. You know, he probably thinks he's labeled as a traitor. He's gonna have

a villains welcome. He never nobody's gonna love him, He's going to be hated. I mean, I mean, I agree, probably that wouldn't be the reception. Probably somebody would say, oh, look an old man, right. They wouldn't say, oh, that's he's the one who because they're also really wasn't very much loved for the Nazi Party at that point in Germany. But I don't know. I guess, well, there are a lot of you can understand that fear, Well, yeah, there's that.

I think I think that the positives outweighed the negatives. It's also possible maybe he's maybe he didn't know because the family wasn't necessarily allowed to talk about just anything with him. Yeah, that's true. Again, there was there were definitely restrictions. Well back to the murder theory though, wolf Hess mentioned before his son who was just going to name her a child for Yeah, he laid out some

reasons for suspicion. Number one, he did say his last visit with his father that Hess was so weak and frail they couldn't walk without a cane on one side and a guard on the other side supporting him. So how could he have managed to actually hang himself? I mean, I guess it's not. It's you step off a thing. Yeah. That sounds morbid and horrible, I know, but I've had

the very I thought about the same thing. Is that there, and you've tossed the cord until he gets up there and you're tying on and you just pull it down and then you tie a thing and you I mean, it's it's it's completely possible to do with very little effort. Yeah. Oh no, it's as if he climbed a ten foot spire and then leapt off of it. Yeah, now I think it's it's probably it is possible. That's just what he says. He that's why he thinks he didn't commit suicide.

But the family also got the body after this, and they had a second autopsy done, and there the reports from this one noted ligature marks around the neck that were horizontal across the neck, which is like more consistent with being drawled by somebody than hanging, because obviously they're going to go like across and then up past your jaw and your ears and all that stuff. And yeah, so it looks like somebody might have actually choked him

to death. Yeah. Uh. And there were supposedly two strangers in American uniforms that were pressed at the side of Hess's hanging. Uh. There was a teenage medical orderly named Abdullah. I don't not sure how to pronounce this last name. We'll go with that, Yeah, okay, Abdulla will just call him Abdullah. Uh. He worked a spand out for he'd been working there for I don't know seven or eight years. Looking after Hess. Abdullah wrote in an affidavit at that quote.

When I arrived at the Garden summer House, I found a scene looking as though a wrestling match had taken place ellipse, he lips the ground was churned up, and the chair in which has usually sat on the ground or sat lay on the ground a considerable distance from its usual location unquote. And then you note that those two strangers, and he said that was unusual because contact with Hess was strictly forbidden. If you're one of the guards, that's one thing, but unless you have a reason to

be in contact with Hess a big note. So it was strange that those two were there. Oh wait, go ahead, keep going. At this time August seven, the US guards were in charge of in the prison. Again, it varied from French, US, British, Russian. I guess that's the theory of vols because wolf Hess believes that it was the British Secret Service that murdered his dad. And I guess his theory is that it wouldn't stink quite so bad. It hasn't died while the Americans were in charge of

guarding him. Whether that's and that so he believes that those two strangers were actually British. Yes, why would Why would? Why did the Brits dock him off? That's this is the thing that This is my biggest problem with I don't understand why they would do it, particularly because weren't the Brits one of the ones that said no, let

him go? Yeah, it was only the Soviets who wouldn't who would not agree to although I guess on the other hand, the Brits may have been saying, yeah, let him go, so we can murder him and as at home, I mean, you know, y yeah, well, it was a bet for them they could easily play the play the good cop and say you have knowing that the Soviets are always going to be but there's no harm in saying, hey, yeah,

we're open at that. Yeah. Yeah, they might have changed if the Sylviets and and and so, since we did have that change in in the sort of Soviet posture, Well, what's the policy. Here's a question, what's the policy of torture for prisoners of war at that time in the

win World War two? Torture? Yeah, I believe it was not sanction Yeah, there's so so I guess the that could be not to jump ahead or anything, but that could be a reason that the Brits would want to murder hess Is if they thought, if they were scared that he might come out with his story of what they did to him for four years he was waterboarded or something something, you know, and tortured brutally. That might be,

and they were trying to keep in quiet. But I but you know, on the flip side, at probably if he was going to say something, he would have said something, right, I think that, yeah, that they wanted to keep money at their control. So but the question is is what was it that you know, what was the big secret he was sitting on? So he couldn't talk about the war or the peace mission that he went on. Everything

was carefully supervised. The theory is that one theory is that Winston Churchill kept the war going with Germany when it wasn't necessary and a lot of a lot of people died, and so that was that would have been like a huge scandal. That's one of that's one of the things that both has things that I think there might be another reason. I mean, that's a good Yeah, that would upset a lot of people. You would want to keep although it's kind of ancient history by this

point in time, right, because when did Churchill time? Oh god, it wasn't eighties, I think, so you would have been dead by then, so it wouldn't have really, although you don't want to sully the memory of No, I've actually just started a search for a good Churchill book because I want to read up anymore, because I don't think he was really weird. Interestingly, I was intriguing, he was. He was amazing. Actually, I mean he was a quirky

little guy, but there was some serious brain power going. Yeah, well, I guess that. You know, if if there was a revelation like that, there would be some serious precedent for reparations right to families, it would at least make the Brits look not super great. Well, yes, and no, I mean, because here's the here's the deal. Is that, like it would have saved some British lives. But at the same time, is it really a great idea to allow the Nazis

to consolidate power on the continent? Right? No, exactly, I mean exactly. I mean he might have peace. Now, that doesn't mean they're not going to come after you later. But as I was saying, it gives it just gives that tacit consent everything that they're doing. You take a break, you recover, and then you go after it some more. But here's here's my thing. Here's my issue with the scene of his suicide. Let's stop. I know, I want

to circle back for a second. So he uh. The description of the scene is that it looked like a wrestling match. It happened. The ground is turned up and the chair is knocked over and far away. Well, there's a couple of things that can that can explain this. It could have been that somebody ran in seeing him hanging there and flung the furniture out of the way to try to get to him, to keep him from hanging,

from dying. It's also entirely possible. I don't I've never seen an image of this room, and we never will because the place has been destroyed. That this hook and where he was at, he may not have been truly hanging. There are examples of people, I don't think. So it could have been that he was, you know, just a little bit at an incline, and so when he was in the death throws, his feet are going there, churning

up the dirt around him. He was flopping around. That's going to give that false impression of a struggle between multiple people when really it's his body in the death sposums. Yeah. Well, and here's the other thing too, is that these were two actual to British says guys. It would be in really fit shape. And two guys guys one very frail nine year old man. There's not going to be a huge death struggle. Yeah. Well, yeah, he probably didn't have

you know, is nazi jiu jitsu skills anymore? And I mean, frankly could have been as simple as he missed a couple of times with the power chord. Right, you know, you've got the heavier end on the power cord. You kind of toss it up and it falls, and then you drag it back and you toss it up and it falls and walking back stumbling, you know. Yeah, I mean there's a million ways. That's why I look at this.

This doesn't doesn't sound affaious to me at all. Very very few things sound affaious to use to its true Well, just love, I am captain rational. Okay, Well, there are some other interesting little tidbits though. Here, um Lieutenant Colonel Eugene Bird he was common dott. It's banned out prison from the nineteen six four seventy one. Okay, So like what's that command You know, he's like the warden. Ok. Yeah, yeah,

that's what I was looking for. Yeah. I guess maybe they thought they saw it as more like and I guess you have a warden in a prison, but in a pow camp there's always a commandant military installations. Yeah, yeah, I guess so. But he got to know No Rudolph Hess very well. I actually they actually became friends and they started working on a collaboration on a book about Hess and his peace flight. And I thought he wasn't allowed to talk about that. Well, apparently there's some exception,

and maybe it was kind of surreptitious, I think. Yeah. But when Bird superiors got wind of this in March ninety one, Bird was placed under house arrest and he was interrogated and extensively. He wrote about it later. He was eventually forced to resign. And you gotta wonder, what's the big secret here? What's the big deal? I mean, I would think that would be a positive thing if Hess wants to tell his story. What's wrong with that? Um? And Bird eventually did publish a book called The Loneliest

Man in the World about Hess. When did the in the U S? When did the ruling come down that prisoners couldn't make money from anything related to their acts. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, I don't. I know that was a ruling that came down. I think it was a law that was passed right right. The point though, is that I just wonder if it was kind of that had set a general precedent among the worldwide audience of oh wait, you're a Nazi. You

shouldn't be able to commemorate yourself in this way. Do you know what I'm saying? You talking about him writing a book? Yeah, well, you know, potentially making some cash off of it. I don't think the plan was so that. I don't know if they were really going to make any cash out of the deal. But people, what was nobody writes a book to write a book? Well, that's true, but what was what was hes going to spend the money on? Anyway he was in prison, he would he

could have bequeathed it to his relatives. He could have in a way made some money to benefit people he knew. But I'm just wondering if that's the reason that they put those squash on it. There were other high ranking Nazis who wrote memoirs after their release from prison. Right

probably made money off after their release from prison. I just I just think that it would have I mean, they would have said that, right, if they had arrested Bird, they would have come out publicly and they would have said, listen, there's this law that we have that he was breaking. I don't know that there was that's in the US. Okay, well, but you know that you would say, listen, this guy was helping this war criminal write a book and we don't think that's right. That's why I arrested him. You

wouldn't say, but don't worry about it. No nothing to see here, people, that's fine, and keep it under wraps. It's almost as if you've never watched a governmental body do that kind of weirdness before. Devon. They do that all the time. I live in America. We do not do that, except for all the time. This is America Freedom Forward. We're talking about Bird. Bird actually did say that he thought, no, not in the Eagle. I'm sorry, we're going away off fact here. Okay, oh yeah, we

are back to Bird. Though he did publicly say that he thought that might have been murdered. Again, of course he did. Yeah, I mean, the two other men were serving life sentences in Spandau were released early in the nineteen fifties, believe or not because they were old and six, so for humanitarian reasons. By the mid eighties, Rudolfs was also pretty old and sick. So why wasn't he let go again? It seems to me the reason was to keep him quiet about something. I can't see any other reason.

I mean, all kinds of people were saying that he should be let go. He probably had things about British cuisine maybe, yeah, maybe that it's probably what it was. Yeah, he said he was awful. Yeah, yeah, you can't get away with that baked beans for breakfast. What he must Yeah, he must pronounced which mitchett, And that's probably what it is. So I've already said that I don't think the scandal was Winston Churchill refusing to make peace, but there might

have been another reason. Yeah. Well, it has been said there were members of the royal family who were sympathetic to Germany, and it could it be that there actually were discussions between the aristocracy and the Germans that the that the British Secret Service hadn't been aware of until after the fact perhaps or maybe even at the time and Hass was it at Hess was knowledgeable about these things, and depending on what was said and who said it, um,

that might be a secret worth keeping. I can't think of any other reason to keep this guy locked up for all these years. But then that's a reason to kill him if he was about to get let out. I don't know, I really I understand the fear of scandal and embarrassment, but I I also just wonder how much credence people are gonna give to a convicted Nazi war criminal for most of his life in jail, and

he was not a convicted war criminal, yeah he was. No, he was convicted of crimes against peace, but he was he was. He was not convicted of war crimes or crimes against humanity. But in everybody's mind, he's a war criminal. He spent forty some years, he's a freaking wars personal friend populations mind. Yeah, so he is so easy to discredit.

I mean, that's it doesn't make sense. I also, I also guess I don't know what the why you would murder him instead of just saying, hey, Russians, y'all just keep saying no and we'll get, we'll get, we owe you two big favors, right, I mean, why would you not just yeah? But again, I'm still I still honestly wonder. I'm not saying I'm sure he was murdered, but I still honestly wondered what it was that they didn't want sta think about, what it was that he knew that

they didn't want the world worn out about. Based on what Devin said, is that British used the term y'all. Yeah, it could have been that. I don't know, but but it seems strange because you know, in the act bath of World War Two, there's historians out there, there's journalists, there's all kinds of people who want to know. They want to sort out the story of what happened. They want to talk to as many people as they can to find out the entire history or World War two.

And this guy had some interesting stuff to tell us all. And but he was he was gagged. He couldn't say a word, you know. So this is just just kind of dawned on me, and I wonder if maybe this is the reason, if indeed he was killed, what happened to Spandau after he died, They tore it down. They tore it down. Why well, some people think that they tore it down just to conceal the evidence of the crime, which I don't believe. But now they tore it down because they didn't want it to become a neo Nazi

shrine exactly. So that is one of the things things that I said. I'm like, wait a minute, because that that movement had been gaining traction for a while at that point. I mean, you know, it was on the rise again, and it could have been that he would have been hailed as some kind of martyr or messiah or saint or whatever. So that could have been a serious fear. Well, so but why this, Why do you need to keep him gagged? If he comes out and anything he says, these people are going to get ahold

of and latch onto and take as a motivation. I could see that as a as a giant fear for the Germans alone, because the German government at in the eighties was really combating this, this neo Nazi movement that was happening, So you see where they would be concerned about it. I mean, it's just it's it popped in

my head, right or wrong. I could suddenly. But they didn't. Again, they didn't try to stop any other former high ranking Nazis like again Albert Spirit, et cetera, from publishing their memoirs. I almost wonder if that would be a good argument for suicide though if Hess was really not he didn't

have that really warlike nature in him. He didn't have that hate was to the party, not to the things the party did well, or to the you know kind of we're going to make this world great part of the party, not the like, and also kill a bunch of people, and you know, and that maybe he did. You know, maybe somebody did say, oh, yeah, there's this neo Nazi resurrection and it's going to be great when you get out. You know, this is going to happen.

Maybe he thought, oh my god, this is what I Maybe he had a realization, maybe have that was not what he wanted it to. Well, it didn't have to be that way, though, I mean he could have if they said, hey, address our next rally, dude, he could have just said, screw you. I don't support you people at all. Look look how things turned out. But I don't know that that, you know, and I'm sure the terms of his release, he would have been required to

not do neo Nazi activities. Sure, I know, but I think that, you know, I think there's there's that chance of having that reflective moment of somebody saying, it's so great, you're going to get out and all these people are here to support you and this is what they believe, and for you to have that moment of realization of oh my god, this is my legacy. Well yeah, but it didn't have to be that way. It didn't have

to be. But they were also three years old, and like they were probably not going to anna answer the world, so so that he could have a big reception committee outside the prison for him, you know, but they probably would be quiet about it. But this is very cynical. I have a question. How soon after he died did they get rid of the prison. I'm not sure exactly what it was. It was pretty soon. It wasn't as if ten years later they finally got around to tear

the thing down. It's kind of too bad. It was it was a cool old building. I mean, it was like kind of castle like it was. It was, and so it's kind of a shame. But this is going to sound really horrible. And I almost wonder if they just needed to tear it down. There might have been in one of the real estate too. Well, I think I don't disagree with that. An we just needed to tear this thing down. And there's this guy who has lived for way longer than we ever thought he would live,

So we just got to get rid of him. They really spent a ton of money keeping one guy locked up. Yeah, I mean, so I almost I wonder. I know that's really horrible. I know it sounds horrible and cynical, and I'm really really sorry, but I almost wonder if they just thought, this guy gotta go, we need to, you know here. Maybe it was real estate developers. Yeah, I mean real estate developers are the ones that killed him. If this was Portland's I would absolutely say. Yeah. They

dressed in military uniform. Yeah, they were Remax agents. Yeah. But I mean I guess you know, who would have thought when you locked a dude up that he would live for that much longer. Yeah, he was a relatively young man, and he was just something he was. He was young. I mean, he was only a couple of years older than I am now. Yeah, so that is

a very young age to get locked up. Yeah, and all of the rest of his people had been released in the right twenty years ago, and so they probably just assumed, all right, this guy is going to be dead in a couple of years, it'll be fine. And then twenty years on, oh man, we can't afford this. Maybe that was it. We're just sick of this and

get rid of the guy. I don't know, it's crazy, but uh was in speaking of shrines, his his body was buried in the family cemetery and I can't remember the name of the town in Germany and somewhere in Bavaria, I think, uh. And it unfortunately became kind of a shrine for for neo Nazis who would have annual gatherings there in his grave, and so alas like government dug up the grave and burned the body and scattered the ashes. I guess that's just upsetting because it doesn't feel like

what he wanted, you know about. Yeah, yeah, he probably think about the neo Nazis. It's frankly, I don't know. I don't really know much about these guys. I suspect that it's not even so much about politics or the socialism or anything. I think it's just about anti semitism, it's about racism. Yet it's about which is not what the Nazi Party was started for. And I agree they were they were racist, but that's not it wasn't the whole thing with that. But there were racists later, yeah,

well yeah, there there was. It's um, it's based on a very common sentiment of if they weren't here, I do better. But no matter what that that people is, there's always one group saying if you weren't here, it'd be better for us. I mean, that's but that was That was the very i'm going to say naive beginning of the racism and the Nazi Party, and then it escalated to a horrible level. And we can all agree on but and so I agree that he probably was.

It is terrible because it wasn't like he was like, yeah, I want a bunch of drunk skinheads on my great Really, I don't think he would have cared for that at all. God he got the short end of the stick. But the thing that to remember about the Nazis is it wasn't just because they were racist, but it's also because at the time they came into being, there was this real, huge, intellectual fat at loose in the world called the eugenics movement, and which began here in America, by the way, Yeah,

and that great job. Yeah and then and then and you know, of course leave it to Hitler in the Gang to take this to an industrial scale. But they actually thought that they were saving the human race because they were all these inferior people out there, and if you we think they're genes in the gene pool, it's gonna make us all better off down the line. And so that's where that came from. Obviously, Eugenics is like

it's I mean, it's still out there. You still see the Darwin Awards, and there's movies like um Idiocracy, which you know, embodies the same ideas, and so there's still lots of people who really believe that hopefully we're not gonna, like, you know, see a return to the Holocaust. Hopefully not. Yeah. Alright, well enough of that. Do you guys have any series I'm totally I think I think that Hess was sent by Hitler, and I also think that he didn't kill himself.

I think it, of course you could have been shoop. Yeah, he is about that right age. Yeah, I think he was sent by Hitler. I think they were both duped by my six probably, and I think it's highly possible. I don't I obviously don't know, but I given the fact that it was for so many years, it seems so important to keep him muzzled, you gotta wonder. And then and then all of a sudden he might be let go bhoops. I guess it's time for him to commit suicide. Yeah, you gotta wonder. I'm not saying I

have definitive evidence or anything, but I'm wondering. Alright. Well, anyway, I guess we'll just call that once solved and solved by something totally. Yea, there talking about we got it, damn it. We've got a hundred percent record. That's awesome. Well, hey, I'd tied for a few. A few things that you guys probably want to know about. You probably want to know. Do we have a website? Yeah, we do. It's called Thinking Sideways podcast dot com. Uh. You can download episodes,

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