Robert,
This shaggy dog story has come up before*.* See “Hess Flight Authorized?” in “Datelines,” *Finest Hour* 152, page 9, or the online synopsis: http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/in-the-media/churchill-in-the-news/1182-did-hitler-give-the-ok-for-hess-mission-to-england One point we didn't make in the above article is that on the same date Hess flew to England, Hitler bombed the House of Commons to smithereens: an odd gesture for someone hoping for a peace treaty. *Titanic* junkies like me know Peter Padfield as the author of a convincing book, *The Titanic and the Californian, *exonerating Captain Stanley Lord of the Leyland liner *Californian*, who supposedly remained immobile within visual range of the sinking *Titanic*. Padfield used a battery of naval technology and measurements to prove that the *Californian* was nowhere near that close. It was the leading text of the “Lordites,” who claimed that Captain Lord had been wrongly accused, notably by Walter Lord (no relation), author of the bestseller,* A Night to Remember*. So Mr Padfield is an accomplished contrarian….but he will have to go some to explain Hess’s own claim (to be looking for anti-Churchill elements in Britain); and first-person testimony from those around Hitler (Albrecht Speer, notably) who observed his furious reactions when he heard of Hess's flight. Which is not to say Hitler might not have been happy to do a deal leaving him a free hand in the east—but surely he was smart enough to realize he’d never get that from Churchill, who he certainly knew was firmly in power by May 1941. The following sidebar is running in our next issue, *FH* 160, in an article about Herbert Hoover’s critique of Churchill (Hoover saw the Soviet Union as the greater danger and abhorred an alliance with them by both Britain and the USA): *“NOT MUCH IN THAT”: CHURCHILL’S ANSWER* * * *In the autumn of 1955, I dined alone with him for seventeen evenings. Those evenings alone* *with an octogenarian were utterly fascinating. All sorts of curious pieces of information came* *out....On 1940 I played the Devil’s Advocate. Leaving aside the appalling issue of the* *extermination camps, which was then not evident, would it have been better if we had joined* *the New Order, as a substantial part of France was then inclined to do? Would the monstrous* *tyranny of Stalinism have been brought to an end, for Hitler most certainly would have* *attacked Russia and, unharrassed in the West, almost certainly would have won? Would the* *equally monstrous tyranny of the Nazi regime have been mitigated or abbreviated by the* *influence of Britain, whom Hitler had always respected? Would we have kept our Empire and* *our financial strength? WSC’s reply was brief:* * * *“You’re only saying that to be provocative. You know very well we couldn’t have made peace on* *the heels of a terrible defeat. The country wouldn’t have stood for it. And what makes you think* *that we could have trusted Hitler’s word—particularly as he could have had Russian resources* *behind him? At best we would have been a German client state, and there’s not much in that.”* *—Anthony Montague Browne, **Finest Hour* *50 (1985, 12)*; *Long Sunset* *(London: Cassell, 1995, 200).* -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ChurchillChat" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/churchillchat. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
