Christopher Priest - The Separation

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.

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: