Christopher Priest - The Separation

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:

1. The United Kingdom is to concede unconditionally that the war against Germany is or will be lost.

2. After the UK has made that concession, Germany will guarantee the independence of Britain and her right to maintain her present colonies.

3. 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.

4. The UK and Germany are to enter into an alliance for a minimum of twenty-five years.

5. 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.