223. NA, NND — 881102; Douglas-Hamilton, The Truth about Rudolf Hess, 68, 128ff.; Irving, HW, 246–7 and n.2. Harrison, ‘Rudolf Heß’, 369–71, points out that the British counter-intelligence organization MI5 had received on 2 November 1940 a letter from Albrecht Haushofer to Hamilton, dated 23 September and intercepted by British censors. This referred to a previous letter of July 1939, and suggested a meeting with Hamilton in Lisbon, or elsewhere on the periphery of Europe. MI5 discussed the letter with the Secret Service, with a view to using Hamilton to ply the Germans with misinformation. Hamilton himself was not consulted about the idea until some months later. Meanwhile, the original of the letter went missing. Hamilton’s cagey response to the proposal left the British authorities hesitant about proceeding. It was at this point that Heß arrived.
224. Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, 379, expressing Cadogan’s impatience with Churchill’s initial line, that Heß had come on a peace-mission, which he thought corresponded too closely with what German propaganda was saying. Churchill, in a furious temper, only bowed next day, 15 May, to pressure from Cadogan and other advisers to refrain from a public statement on the Heß affair. Massively relieved that the British had not acted as he would have done in making maximum propaganda capital out of the affair — ‘the only but also dreadful danger for us’ — Goebbels remarked that ‘it seems as if a guardian angel is again standing near us’, witheringly concluding that ‘we’re dealing with dim dilettantes (mit doofen Dilettanten) over there. What we would do if it were the other way round!’ (TBJG, I/9, 315 (16 May 1941).
225. See R. Schmidt, 24.
226. R. Schmidt, 29.
227. Irving, Göring, 316–17, 327; Irving, HW, 22m.
228. R. Schmidt, 10; Gabriel Gorodetsky, ‘Churchill’s Warning to Stalin. A Reappraisal’, The Historical Journal, 29 (1986), 979–90. For information reaching Stalin on the German military build-up, and his awareness of a coming invasion, see Valentin Falin, Zweite Front. Die Inter-essenkonflikte in der Anti-Hitler-Koalition, Munich, 1995, 193–5.
229. R. Schmidt, 18–19. Harrison, ‘Rudolf Heß’, 382–8, plays down the intent, emphasizing instead the confusion in the British Foreign Office and the missed propaganda opportunity, while acknowledging the enormous concern and misinterpretation which ensued in the Soviet leadership.
230. R. Schmidt, 34–6.
231. Stalin was still suspicious about the Heß affair, believing it had been a plot to involve Britain and Germany entering the war together against the Soviet Union, some three years later (Churchill, iii.49).
232. R. Schmidt, 32, 36. Such moves do not provide evidence of a prior intention on the part of the Soviet Union to attack Germany — the notorious ‘preventive war theory’. See Chapter 9 n.4, below.
233. Weisungen, 139–40; Domarus, 1719–20; Oxford Companion, 571.
234. Elizabeth-Anne Wheal and Stephen Pope, The Macmillan Dictionary of the Second World War, 2nd edn, London, 1995, 57–9, contains a summary description of the sinking of the Bismarck. A vivid account is provided by Churchill, iii.Ch.XVII.
235. Hewel recorded the ‘very depressed mood (sehr deprimierte Stimmung)’ among the Nazi leadership on account of the fate of the Bismarck. Hitler was ‘endlessly sad (unendlich traurig)’, and had ‘immeasurable anger at the navy leadership (Maßlose Wut auf Seekriegsleitung)’ for failure to adopt the correct tactics and unnecessary exposure of the Bismarck. (IfZ, ED 100, Irving-Sammlung, Hewel-Tagebuch, entries for 26 May, especially, 27 May, and 31 May 1941. See also Raeder, Mein Leben, ii.269–71; Lagevorträge, 239 (6 June 1941); Irving, HW, 254, 258.)
236. Christopher R. Browning, Ordinary Men. Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, New York, 1992, 11.
237. Anatomie, ii. 176–82, 2o6ff.
238. Krausnick/Wilhelm, 141–50; Höhne, Death’s Head, 328–30.
239. Höhne, Death’s Head, 328.
240. Krausnick/Wilhelm, 148.
241. Ulrich Herbert, ’ “Generation der Sachlichkeit”. Die völkische Studentenbewegung der frühen zwanziger Jahre in Deutschland’, in Frank Bajohr, Werner Johe and Uwe Lohalm (eds.), Zivilisation und Barbarei, Hamburg, 1991, 115–44, especially 137–8.
242. Krausnick/Wilhelm, 148–9.
243. Höhne, Death’s Head, 330.
244. TBJG, I/9, 346 (31 May 1941).
245. Domarus, 1722.
246. CD, 352 (1 June 1941).
