TLS:
When Rudolf Hess bailed out of a Luftwaffe plane and parachuted on to a Scottish farm shortly before midnight on May 10, 1941 – in one of the most bizarre incidents of the Second World War – he was, most likely, seeking to broker a peace between Britain and Nazi Germany. It is not clear whether he was acting alone or if he had made prior contacts in the UK. Nor do we know precisely what outcome he expected. Perhaps he imagined that he’d be received in high diplomatic circles, even welcomed as a hero. He might have anticipated being celebrated at home for his role in hastening an end to the senseless Anglo–German conflict, thus allowing the Nazis to turn their attention to the Soviet Union, their declared racial and ideological enemy, while ceding to Britain its mastery of the seas. What he most certainly did not count on, however, was that he would fall into the hands of the psychoanalysts.
Comments