Minister tells of encounter with ‘real evil’ in prison where Nazi leader Hess had just killed himself
A CHURCH of Scotland minister has revealed what made him feel the closest he has ever felt to real evil.
Reverend Peter Sutton, recently appointed minister at St Cuthbert’s Parish Church, Edinburgh, said the moment occurred when he stared into the room where Adolf Hitler’s deputy killed himself.
Rev Sutton was a young officer in the Black Watch guarding Spandau Prison, Berlin, where Rudolph Hess was held.
He was on duty the day after the Nazi committed suicide 30 years ago at the age of 93.
Mr Sutton said the day would be forever etched into his memory.
“Most of the senior Nazis after the Nuremberg trials who were not
executed were sent to Spandau and Hess was the last one there,” he said.
“The day after he killed himself, another officer and I were able to walk through the huge gardens because the German wardens had gone.
“We approached a white cabin and the front of it was all glass.
“My fellow officer and I just stopped talking and for some reason we just had to get out of there as fast as we could. I will never forget it.”
Mr Sutton, who was a 19-year-old Second Lieutenant at the time, said he never met Hess but described him as a man with the “weight of history and his conscience on his shoulders”.
“Standing in the place where the last Nazi had killed himself the day before was very eerie and chilling, it was the closest I have ever felt to real evil.”
Hess was Deputy Fuhrer of Nazi Germany from 1933 until a doomed flight to Scotland in 1941 to hold peace talks with the Duke of Hamilton.
He was captured near Eaglesham, Renfrewshire, in 1941 after his Messerschmitt 110 crash-landed.