- A brief entry in the diary of the wife of a British spy
has led to the discovery of the true story behind one of the greatest mysteries
of the Second World War - the bizarre 1941 flight to Britain of Hitler's
deputy Rudolf Hess.
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- No single incident in Britain's wartime history has given
birth to so many conspiracy theories, all of them centred on an alleged
plot by the intelligence services to lure Hess to Britain.
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- They range from suggestions that the man imprisoned by
the Allies after the war was not the real Hess, who allegedly died in the
1942 air crash that killed the Duke of Kent, to claims that British psychological
warfare experts conned him into coming to Britain so they could use him
in an anti-Nazi propaganda campaign.
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- The response from academics has always been disparaging.
They regard the conspiracy theories as patent nonsense and, perhaps in
response, invariably dismiss any claim of major MI6 involvement in the
affair.
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- But the diary has revealed that MI6 was not only heavily
involved in the run-up to Hess's flight but even planned "a sting
operation" aimed at luring Hess or another prominent German into bogus
peace talks with Britain.
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- The diary belonged to the wife of Frank Foley, the former
MI6 head of station in Berlin, who was to become more famous for his work
in getting "tens of thousands" of Jews out of Germany.
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- It was Foley, as the leading German expert in MI6, who
was in charge of the year-long debriefing of the deputy f¸hrer. This
much is known from Foreign Office files released to the National Archives
some years ago.
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- Hess flew to Britain in a Messerschmitt-110 on May 10,
1941, intent on making contact with the Duke of Hamilton, who he believed
would help him mediate a peace deal whereby Britain would join Nazi Germany
in a war against the Soviet Union. It was a hopeless mission based on a
fundamental misunderstanding of the British establishment.
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- Winston Churchill, Britain's wartime prime minister,
was convinced that it had produced an intelligence windfall for Britain.
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- But Churchill was wrong. The debriefing was a wasted
effort. Hess knew astonishingly little and, to make matters worse, Foley
swiftly realised he was mad.
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- That is where the role of both MI6 and Foley in the Hess
affair begins and ends, according to the files released to the National
Archives.
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- But the emergence of Kay Foley's diary, which she had
given to one of her nieces, changed all that, sparking off an investigation
that has uncovered the truth about Rudolf Hess.
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- Mrs Foley kept the diary for seven years, from January
1936 to December 1942. Not unnaturally for a journal covering such a long
period, the entries were all frustratingly brief. Foley was only ever referred
to as F (for Frank) and although records of his official activity appeared
in the diary, they were vague.
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- For the most part, the diary provided nothing new about
Foley and what he did.
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- A few entries added a minor piece of new information.
One gave a precise date for a wartime change of job, another details of
when and where Foley landed in Britain after the fall of France, adding
interesting detail of what he did before returning home.
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- But the most puzzling entries by far concerned a visit
to Lisbon that Foley made in early 1941. He flew out of Whitchurch aerodrome
near Bristol on Friday, Jan 17, 1941, spending two weeks in Lisbon and
arriving back in England on Saturday Feb 1, 1941, when the diary records
that Kay received a telegram from F reassuring her that he had arrived
safely back in England.
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- The dates were intriguing. Seven months before Hess flew
to Britain, in September 1940, one of his close advisers, Albrecht Haushofer,
the leading expert on Great Britain in the German Foreign Office, had written
to the Duke of Hamilton at Hess's request, attempting to set up a meeting
in Lisbon.
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- The letter, sent via an intermediary, an old family friend
of the Haushofers, was intercepted and passed to MI5, who initially suspected
Hamilton and the intermediary might be German spies and began an investigation.
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- By November 1940 they had realised this was not the case
and spent some months considering whether or not to send Hamilton, a serving
RAF officer, to Lisbon to meet Haushofer.
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- The plan was eventually discarded as too dangerous but
the letter's very existence has always fuelled the allegation at the heart
of the conspiracy theories ñ that British intelligence lured Hess
to Britain.
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- Conspiracy theories are easily dismissed but if MI6 was
aware that someone so close to power had put out feelers to the British
establishment, it would be bound to consider meeting them.
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- If the approach was from opposition forces, they would
be useful allies. If it came from someone with Hitler's backing, it would
have provided invaluable intelligence.
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- The dates for Foley's visit to Lisbon were midway between
the letter's interception and Hess's arrival in Britain. They looked right.
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- Only MI6 could say for sure what Foley was doing in Lisbon.
The service still refuses to release any of its own files, but it does
retain a number of "old boys" as historians to look after them.
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- Their immediate response was that Foley must have gone
to Lisbon to look at a potential double-cross operation, a reference to
the highly successful system whereby the vast majority of Nazi spies sent
to Britain were "turned" by British intelligence to provide false
information to the Germans.
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- Although Foley did eventually take over as head of the
MI6 Double-Cross section, this did not happen until 15 months later (the
diary fixes the date as April 16, 1942).
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- Told this, the MI6 historian went back and checked the
files. What he found was the answer to the mystery that has puzzled historians
for more than half a century.
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- Much of the MI6 archive on Hess has been destroyed. But
in the files there was a single, more recent reference that spoke of MI6
plans for "a sting operation" in response to the Haushofer letter.
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- The MI6 historian also has access to oral histories from
former officers and, where they are still alive, the officers themselves.
By delving into this "folk memory", he discovered that Foley
had flown to Lisbon to see whether it was possible to use a meeting with
Haushofer to set up a sting operation.
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- Foley was accompanied by his secretary, Margaret Reid,
who was presumably there not just to take notes but also to provide cover
ñ a middle-aged gentleman and his "niece" spending two
weeks away from the austerity of wartime Britain.
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- There is, frustratingly, no information on what Foley
and Reid actually did in Lisbon. But the only effective way of checking
out the viability of a sting operation would have been to respond to the
letter and to arrange to meet either Haushofer or another intermediary
in the Portuguese capital.
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- In an account written for Hitler after Hess flew to Britain,
Haushofer said: "I did not learn whether the letter reached the addressee.
The possibilities of it having being lost en route from Lisbon to England
are not small after all."
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- But he could scarcely have admitted having had contacts
with the British secret service. After Hess flew to Britain, Haushofer
was treated with a great deal of suspicion by the Sicherheitsdienst, the
Nazi party's security service. It interrogated him and placed his flat
and office under surveillance. At any event, whatever Foley and Reid did
in Lisbon, it took a full two weeks. They arrived back in England with
bad news.
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- Foley had decided that the sting was too risky and, understandably,
Sir Stewart Menzies, the chief of MI6, took the advice of his top expert
on Germany, frustrating Hess in his attempts to put out peace feelers to
the British aristocracy.
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- As with most of the events that become the subject of
conspiracy theories, the truth about Hess has turned out to be much more
mundane. Haushofer had always warned Hess that the attempt to go through
Hamilton was likely to fail and that it might be necessary to send "a
neutral intermediary" to Britain.
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- When it did fail, the deputy f¸hrer clearly decided
that he could not afford to leave such an important task to someone else
and simply came himself.
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- Foley: The Spy Who Saved 10,000 Jews by Michael Smith
(Politico's) is available for £8.99. To order (plus £2.25 p&p)
call Telegraph Books Direct on 0870 155 7222.
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- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004.
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