Those published papers never included anything that even remotely resembled my findings. I have always been curious about why this might be, since what I discovered about Hess should have thrown everyone’s assumptions about him into turmoil. At first I assumed it was simply the way governments worked, but once I made serious efforts to find out what happened after I met Hess I realized that there must have been a decision to cover up the details.
Because I am telling my own story, not an official one, I don’t feel bound by the political imperatives of half a century ago. Although I can’t locate the original report I wrote, I do vividly remember the meetings, and because I have kept my own handwritten notes from which the report proper was typed I can reproduce a fair copy of it here. My days with Hess were long and often tedious, with many interruptions, distractions and obscurities. He often confused me and frequently annoyed me, but for a lot of the time he simply bored me. My report boiled everything down to the salient facts, thanks to Miss MacTyre’s advice. Some details might have become blurred by the passage of time, but the main conclusion is identical to the one I reported to Churchill in 1941. This report is still an accurate summary of what I discovered.
Report:
To Prime Minister
Author: Group Captain (Acting) J. L. Sawyer
Date:
August 26, 1941
Subject:
Prisoner ‘Jonathan’, currently held at Camp ‘Z’, Berkshire.
Q Before you arrived at Camp ‘Z’, did you know the identity of the prisoner you were going to meet?
No. When I arrived, officials of the Ministry of Defence told me that Camp ‘Z’ contained a single prisoner of war, whose codename was ‘Jonathan’. That is all I knew in advance.
Q Did you recognize the prisoner when you met him?
I immediately recognized the prisoner as being Walther Richard Rudolf Hess, Deputy Führer of the Third Reich.
Q Why did you recognize him?
I recognized him because I had previously met Rudolf Hess on two occasions in 1936, when I was in Berlin as a member of the British Olympics team. Hess is a man of distinctive physical appearance. He is tall and fairly broad. He has a high forehead beneath dark, wavy hair. He has prominent cheekbones. He has deep-set eyes, coloured greenish-grey, with large black eyebrows. That is an exact description of the prisoner.
Q What were your first impressions of the prisoner?
Although I instantly knew who he was, I was surprised by Hess’s appearance. He did not look well. He has been in captivity in Britain for several weeks and he complains of mistreatment and insufficient food. If his complaints had any substance they might explain the deterioration in his appearance, but as far as I could tell they are unsubstantiated, as I describe below. From his present appearance he appears to have lost a great deal of weight, more than you would imagine possible after only a few weeks in captivity. His cheekbones have become more prominent and his jaw looks bony. He stands with his shoulders stooped. His front teeth protrude slightly. He is not as tall as I remember him and his voice is deeper in pitch.
Q Did the prisoner recognize you?
I spent a total of three days with Hess. At no point did he say that he remembered meeting me before, even when I deliberately raised the Berlin Olympics as a subject and we discussed them for several minutes.
Q In which languages did you and the prisoner converse?
German and English, although predominantly German. My own first language is English; my second language is German, which I speak fluently.
Our spontaneous conversions were in German. Whenever Hess was reading from his notes or lecturing me on Hitler’s plans for supremacy, he spoke in German. When I asked questions in English he appeared unable to understand them. However, he spoke English on several different occasions. I gained the impression that he had memorized in advance much of what I heard him say in English.
Hess is an ‘Auslander’, born to German parents in Alexandria, Egypt. He spent much of his childhood and young adult life in Bavaria and he speaks German with a ‘southern’ accent. However, I detected several words and phrases more commonly used by Swiss or some Austrian German-speakers. In Germany, his unusual accent would make him stand out. I can find no reference to it in the Foreign Office profile of Hess that I have since consulted.
Q Did the prisoner describe the circumstances in which he was captured by the British?
Hess said that he had flown to Britain with a proposal for peace between Britain and Germany. He called it a ‘separate’ peace, one which would exclude all other parties, notably the USA and the USSR. While he was looking for somewhere to land, his plane ran low on fuel and he was forced to escape by parachute. He was arrested before he could contact the people he was intending to meet. He repeatedly referred to a ‘peace party’ in Britain, which at first I took to mean an opposition party in Parliament. Of course, no such party exists. He said he was carrying a letter addressed to the Duke of Hamilton, which has since been mislaid or stolen. He expected that after he had read the letter, Hamilton would introduce him to the Prime Minister. Peace negotiations would begin immediately. He frequently expresses in most bitter terms his frustration at not being able to present his proposals for peace.
I explained to the prisoner (as I was authorized to do) that I was a personal emissary of the Prime Minister, Mr Winston Churchill. I showed him the letter of accreditation supplied by the P.M.’s office. He read it closely.
For a few minutes afterwards he treated me with noticeable deference and courtesy. Then, without explanation, he suddenly refused to speak to me. It lasted for the rest of the first day. When our conversation resumed, the following morning, he was more guarded in his responses and seemed suspicious of me. (Transcripts in German and English of all conversations are included in the full version of this report.)
Q Did the prisoner ‘Jonathan’ bring any messages with him to Britain?
The prisoner carries a sheaf of handwritten papers, which he consults from time to time. On two occasions I was allowed to see short extracts, but the pages were handwritten illegibly. When reading from these papers, or speaking extempore while referring to them, Hess invariably spoke in German. The subject was a long-winded history and justification of Nazi ideals, which I found tedious and sometimes offensive.
When the prisoner spoke in English, he was less wearisome but often more ambiguous.
Q When the prisoner ‘Jonathan’ flew to Britain, was he acting on his own or was he on a mission authorized by Adolf Hitler?
Hess was never clear on this subject. He sometimes said that the Führer had ordered him to negotiate a separate peace. (He used the German verb befehlen, ‘command’.) At other times he referred to it as ‘my’ proposal or ‘our’ proposal.
To try to clarify the matter I asked the prisoner if the proposal was being made by him personally or if it came with Hitler’s backing and therefore could be treated as an official approach from the German state. The prisoner replied in German that in wartime the two were the same. He then said that he was acting on his own initiative on behalf of the German government and that a separate peace with Britain was the personal wish of Chancellor Hitler. It had his full backing and authority.
I felt this did not clarify the situation in any way.
On another occasion, the prisoner said that Hitler had made a number of public pronouncements about his wish for peace with Britain. He drew my attention to several of Hitler’s speeches, in particular the one to the Reichstag on July 19, 1940. In the speech Hitler pleaded for common sense to prevail in both countries.
Q What are the details of the peace proposal from Germany?
After much discussion with the prisoner it appears that the offer of peace is based on the following five principles:
The United Kingdom is to concede unconditionally that the war against Germany is or will be lost.
After the UK has made that concession, Germany will guarantee the independence of Britain and h
er right to maintain her present colonies.
The UK undertakes not to interfere in the internal or external affairs of any European country. In particular, Germany is to be allowed a free hand in Eastern Europe.
The UK and Germany are to enter into an alliance for a minimum of twenty-five years.
So long as war continues between Germany and other states, the UK will maintain an attitude of benevolent neutrality towards Germany.
Q What was your response to these proposals?
None. I said merely that I would pass on the proposals to the Prime Minister’s office.
Q Did you form any views as to the prisoner’s sanity or otherwise?
I have no medical or legal training so I can only offer a general or informal impression.
In the first place, there is no question but that the prisoner acts in a peculiar way. His behaviour is often puerile, especially at mealtimes. Like a child, he plays with his food, refuses in a bad-tempered way to eat, deliberately spills food and drinks. It could mean anything: that he has a puerile personality, or that his hold on sanity is slipping, or that he is acting in a way that he hopes we will think means that he is losing his sanity.
He is a persistent complainer. He says that people open and close car doors outside the house at night. He says that motorcycles are revved up outside his window to keep him awake. He even complained that for several nights running he was woken by gunfire. I might add that I slept in the same house as Hess for three nights and, although there were many comings and goings, I considered noise levels normal. The house is close to a large army base where there is a range. I came to the conclusion that his complaints were made as a part of the larger picture concerning his dislike of being held prisoner.
He is convinced that his food is being poisoned. During the meals I shared with him he elaborately examined and sniffed the food before eating it. At one meal he demanded that I exchange plates with him before we started eating. (I refused.) He claims that the people holding him prisoner are starving him, but while I was there he was given substantial portions – somewhat bigger, I might point out, than most serving RAF officers are currently being offered – which he ate with speed and relish. He told me several times that he was a vegetarian, yet he ate meat of some kind at every meal, without complaining about it. (According to the Foreign Office file, Rudolf Hess has been a vegetarian for many years.)
From time to time he breaks off a conversation to indulge in yoga-like exercises (such as lying on the floor or folding his legs) but the clumsiness of his movements makes it appear that he has not been practising it for long. (According to Foreign Office intelligence, Rudolf Hess began practising yoga while he was still at school.)
The prisoner claims to be losing his memory and makes unspecified accusations that his captors are drugging or influencing him in some way. When questioned on potentially sensitive matters, the prisoner frequently claims that he cannot remember, while at other times his memory is exact and detailed.
Q What are your general observations about the conditions in which the prisoner is being kept?
The regime at Camp ‘Z’ is efficient, thorough, clean and restrictive. The prisoner is treated humanely and has access to writing materials and German-language books. He is allowed a copy of The Times each day. He is addressed with firmness but courtesy.
Given that we are in a war and the general populace is having to put up with severe rationing of ordinary supplies, the food the prisoner is offered is plentiful, well prepared and reasonably varied.
The prisoner is allowed several periods of exercise every day. Camp ‘Z’ has large grounds. There is a tennis court in good condition which is used by several of the staff while off duty. The prisoner shows no interest in exercise other than short, undemanding strolls on one small lawn. (According to the Foreign Office file, Rudolf Hess is a keen tennis player and an advocate of healthy exercise. The prisoner has apparently stated to one of his captors that he dislikes tennis and will not play.)
As far as I can see, the prisoner’s larger complaints about mistreatment are unfounded.
Q What conclusions do you draw from what you have seen and what the prisoner has said to you?
(1) THE PEACE PROPOSAL:
I believe it to be genuine in the sense that Rudolf Hess sincerely wants to offer peace to the UK.
Without Hitler’s endorsement, such an offer would be worthless. Although the prisoner sometimes asserted unequivocally that Hitler had ‘commanded’ it, I was left feeling unsure whether Hitler even knew about it.
Rudolf Hess left Germany on May 10 – Germany invaded the Soviet Union six weeks later, on June 22. Hess said nothing in my presence about the invasion that he could not have found out since from reading the newspaper. He revealed no special insights into Hitler’s strategy, military intentions, etc. His peace proposal makes no mention of the war against Russia, other than a vague reference to ‘other states’.
My conclusion is that the prisoner knew nothing of the invasion before he left. This alone underlines the probability that he was not privy to Hitler’s plans in the weeks leading up to his flight. It in turn suggests that his plan does not have Hitler’s backing.
(2) THE PRISONER:
All through my meetings with the prisoner I felt there was something ‘wrong’ about him. I made a conscious effort to think back to my earlier meetings with Hess in 1936 and to compare the man I remembered with the man I was interviewing. In doing this I kept in mind the prisoner’s greatly altered circumstances.
Throughout our meetings, the prisoner ‘Jonathan’ struck me as impulsive, naïve and afflicted with a persecution complex. In 1936, Rudolf Hess showed none of this. At that time he struck me as clever, calculating, intimidating, sinister and something of a bully.
Rudolf Hess is a leading Nazi who enacted several anti-Jewish laws before the war began, the notorious ‘Nuremberg Laws’. He made several well-reported speeches with distinct anti-Jewish sentiments. However, other than using his documents to quote Hitler’s record and express Nazi policy, the prisoner revealed no anti-Semitic attitudes.
While it is known that Rudolf Hess was brought up by prosperous middle-class parents within a Germanic expatriate community, the prisoner ‘Jonathan’ displays vulgar table habits, frequently remarked on by the staff at Camp ‘Z’. For example, he invariably drinks soup by tipping the edge of the bowl against his mouth, he belches loudly between courses, he leans over his food with his elbows resting on the table, he chews with his mouth open and so on. Rudolf Hess is well known to be a vegetarian, but ‘Jonathan’ routinely eats meat without complaint.
‘Jonathan’ bears an uncanny physical resemblance to Rudolf Hess, claims to be Rudolf Hess and by his act of bringing a proposal for a separate peace he is arguably acting as Rudolf Hess, but I am left in real doubt as to his identity.
I have no idea why a substitute should have been sent on the mission, nor how such an imposture might have been arranged and carried through, nor why the prisoner, now the game is up, does not reveal his true identity. Even so, I can state categorically that the prisoner in Camp ‘Z’ is a physical double, an impostor. The prisoner ‘Jonathan’ is not the Deputy Führer, Rudolf Hess.
REPORT ENDS.
I returned to Northolt. After two days I received my posting back to 148 Squadron at Tealby Moor. A week later I was summoned to the Station Commander’s office and given a sealed envelope which had been delivered by a motorcycle despatch rider. Noticing the insignia on the back flap, I took it to my room and opened it in private. It contained a short, typewritten note:
Dear Squadron Leader J. L. Sawyer,
The Prime Minister is grateful for your diligent attention to the task you undertook on his behalf. He wishes you to know that your report has been studied in detail and is currently being acted upon. You are of course aware of the highly confidential nature of your findings and conclusions, which confidence must not be breached within the foreseeable future for any reason whatsoever. r />
Yours sincerely,
(signed) Arthur Curtis
Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister
Underneath was another note, this one written with a broad-nibbed fountain pen. It said:
Hess will no doubt receive what he deserves, as will in the end Herr Hitler. Yr. report is a great credit to you. I wish to apologize once again for my insensitive remarks concerning yr. late bro., which were based on a misunderstanding within my department. I held him in the highest regard.
WSC
(I never again saw the man who stood in for Rudolf Hess. He remained a prisoner in Britain until the end of the war, with no information about him being released to the public. He frequently feigned amnesia and madness, but always maintained he was Hess. He was taken to Nuremberg in October 1945, where he was indicted under all four Counts as a war criminal. He was found guilty on Counts One and Two – Conspiracy to Wage Aggressive War and Waging Aggressive War – but not guilty on Counts Three and Four – War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. Because of Soviet suspicions about Hess, he was not allowed remission against his sentence. He therefore served forty-two years in prison (forty-six years when the time spent in Britain is included). For the last years of his life he was the sole prisoner in Spandau Prison, West Berlin. He never appealed against his sentence on the grounds of wrongful conviction or mistaken identity. He refused to see Frau Ilse Hess or her son Wolf for many years, finally relenting in 1969 when he mistakenly believed he was near death. At the time he was seventy-five years old. Frau Hess had not seen her husband for more than twenty-eight years. Medical examination of the prisoner in 1973 could find no trace of the scarring that would have been caused by rifle bullet injuries known to have been sustained by Rudolf Hess during the First World War. This is the only forensic evidence made public that supports my own belief about the imposture, because scars caused by bullet wounds never disappear. The prisoner died in mysterious circumstances while he was still being held in Spandau, in August 1987. A suicide note found by the body appeared to have been written many years earlier. Post-mortem examination of the body did not establish conclusive cause of death, other than asphyxiation. In some quarters his death is regarded as murder. Again, no sign of heavy scarring from war injuries was found on the body. Soon after the death of the prisoner, Spandau Prison was demolished to prevent it becoming a shrine for neo-Nazis. The body was laid to rest by the family in a secret location. Some time later, it was moved to the family plot in Wunsiedel. The prisoner’s real identity, if known, was never revealed by the authorities.)