Britain eager to debunk Hess imposter claims

Archives show government bid to prove prisoner was right man

The British authorities were desperate to debunk claims that Rudolf Hess was really an imposter, according to newly released official files.

By 1979 Hitler’s deputy had been behind bars for almost four decades, after flying to Britain in 1941 on a bizarre one-man peace mission to end the Second World War.

However, a former British Army surgeon who had examined Hess in Spandau Prison – where he had been held since 1947 – caused a media sensation with a book claiming they had the wrong man, and the British government had been party to a cover-up.

Dr Hugh Thomas argued Hess’s plane had been shot down on take-off from Germany on the orders of his rival, SS chief Heinrich Himmler, and that an imposter was then sent to make the flight in his place.

Although the theory was widely seen as far-fetched, files released by the National Archives in Kew show that Foreign Office officials were anxious that the claims should not go unchallenged. Behind the scenes officials quietly commissioned a series of reports demolishing what they considered to be the weakest points in the book.

Following the completion of the reports, the Foreign Office then issued a low-key written answer stating: “On the basis of these studies, we have no doubt the prisoner in Spandau is Rudolf Hess.”

The files record the repeated attempts from the late 1950s onwards of three of the Western allies to press for Hess’s release on humanitarian grounds, only to be rebuffed on every occasion by the Soviets.

Hess was finally found hanging at the prison in 1987 aged 93.

PA. Picture: Rudolph Hess was held in Spandau Prison from 1947 until his death in 1987.