The Hitler–Hess Deception. Martin Allen

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СКАЧАТЬ To call it instead an ‘SS peace move’ might be more accurate. But Venlo was important because it involved Britons and Germans at the highest level; it also set in motion a chain of events that would give the first seeds of an idea to British Intelligence that they might conduct a similar ‘sting’ of their own.

      It is entirely possible that the Stevens/Payne-Best–Morz operation pre-October 1939 was originally an SD ‘sting’ aimed at crippling British Intelligence’s network in western Europe, but Heydrich’s participation in the operation post-Dahlerus indicates that a change in priorities had taken place. Moreover, Schellenberg’s reports on the affair were passed through Heydrich directly to Himmler.

      On the British side, much of the remaining evidence suggests that the subsequent writing-off of Venlo as a ‘sting’ was primarily intended to protect Chamberlain from being caught holding secret peace talks with the Germans at the same time that he was condemning Nazi expansionism – a position he would have found hard to explain not only to Parliament, but to the Poles and the French. Intriguingly, in the Foreign Office’s ‘President Roosevelt’s Eyes Only’ communication of June 1941, Sir Alexander Cadogan would confidentially remark to Britain’s Ambassador in Washington that ‘the only important omission from our memorandum is the story of the Venlo incident in November 1939’.²⁹ Thus, within Whitehall, Venlo was classified as amongst the ‘peaceable attempts’, and not as an intelligence operation that went disastrously wrong.

      Given what is known about Hitler’s desperation to end the war with Britain, it is possible that had the SS found a possible route to peace, Himmler would have ordered Heydrich to explore it, for he too was well aware of the extremely dangerous situation Germany was falling into. In 1942 Count Ciano would record that ‘Himmler, who now feels the real pulse of the country, wants a compromise peace’,³⁰ for his ‘plans for expansion into Russia were based on his hopes of coming to an understanding with the West’.³¹ Indeed, when the tide of war had finally turned inexorably against Germany in 1944, Himmler would earnestly engage in his own secret peace negotiations, this time without Hitler’s knowledge, and would attempt to use Albrecht Haushofer to do this. It is therefore likely that Himmler was inclined to attempt to restore peace with Britain in 1939, at a time when it would have secured both the fortunes of the Reich and his own position at the top of the Nazi hierarchy.

      The collapse of the Venlo/SS peace attempt unnerved Hitler, for he undoubtedly did believe that the Bürgerbräukeller attempt on his life had been connected in some way to the negotiations taking place in Holland. But unbeknownst to Himmler, Heydrich or anyone else in the SS, Hitler was already pursuing yet another entirely private avenue to peace – his own short-cut to European domination. Hitler was a great believer in auguries, mysticism, and what he liked to call his ‘destiny’. It is therefore little wonder that he took his salvation from the Bürgerbräukeller bombing very seriously indeed, and was sure fate had played a hand in saving him from being blown to bits. The reason Hitler had left the Bürgerbräukeller early was to travel back to Berlin to meet another emissary. Only this emissary wasn’t offering peace mediation, but a victory that would enable him to dictate peace terms to a defeated foe.

      The important peaceable attempts (i.e. those that could be directly connected to Hitler’s interests) between 1939 and 1941 fall into a clearly discernible pattern. As soon as one of them began to falter or fail, so keen was Hitler to have peace in the west that another was instantly begun through some other medium – be it by banker, businessman, diplomat or royal – in an attempt to keep the dialogue going.

      There were, however, two exceptions to this rule.

      The first occurred from mid-November 1939 to July 1940, directly following the failure of Venlo. It was a time when, through a French-American named Charles Bedaux, and later through Baron Oswald von Hoyningen-Huene, Germany’s Ambassador in Lisbon, Adolf Hitler attempted to open a line of communication to the former King Edward VIII, now the Duke of Windsor, whom he mistakenly believed was still an influential personality in British politics.

      The other period of inactivity lasted from the second half of 1940 until mid-1941. At this time Hitler believed that the best opportunity for peace was through the efforts of Albrecht Haushofer and Rudolf Hess, whose high-level negotiations were aimed at permanently removing Britain from the war.

      What this reveals is that Hitler repeatedly engaged in secret and complex efforts to negotiate his way out of a war in the west he did not want, except when he believed he had found an inside track to undermining the Allies’ (i.e. Britain’s) resolve and ability to continue the conflict – a carrot-and-stick approach to persuade or force Britain to the negotiating table. Two attempts to proffer the carrot – Dahlerus and Venlo – had failed, so now Hitler determined to use the stick.

      Hitler’s first attempt to force Britain to the table involved a French-American businessman named Charles Bedaux, a close friend of the Duke of Windsor, who (according to documents in British, German and American archives) offered to act as an intermediary carrying messages between Germany and the former King Edward VIII.³²

      Charles Bedaux was no novice in the world of espionage. He had been a spy for Germany in the United States during the First World War,³³ and had, in boom-time America of the 1920s, prospered to become a multi-millionaire. By the 1930s he was back in Europe, where his home, the Château de Candi, swiftly became known as a hotbed of Nazi intrigue and plotting.³⁴ During the 1930s Bedaux had played a key role in the reorganisation of German industry which enabled Hitler’s rearmament programme to take place. He thus moved in very high Nazi circles indeed, knew Hitler personally, and even had a villa at Berchtesgaden within sight of the Führer’s Berghof.³⁵

      In 1937 Bedaux had hosted the wedding of the abdicated King Edward VIII to the American divorcee Wallis Simpson, at the Château de Candi. Having firmly insinuated himself into the Windsors’ lives, he swiftly became responsible for their tour of Nazi Germany, which although well received in Germany, was a public-relations disaster in Britain, where Edward had hoped to restore his standing. Thereafter the relationship had cooled, but in October 1939 Bedaux reported exciting news to Hitler concerning the Duke of Windsor, with whom he was back on friendly terms.

      What had occurred was that in late September 1939, Reichsleiter Alfred Rosenberg, head of the Aussenpolitisches Amt, received a postcard from an old friend, purporting to be in neutral Switzerland and asking for a meeting. The friend, a Balt named Baron ‘Bill’ de Ropp of east Prussian stock, was also an old acquaintance of Group Captain Winterbotham, who was near the top of British Air Intelligence. De Ropp also had close associations with British Intelligence, and had been of considerable assistance to the British secret service during the 1930s.

      After checking with Ribbentrop, Rosenberg travelled to Switzerland at the beginning of October. He was soon rubbing his hands in glee at what de Ropp told him, reporting back to Berlin that: ‘Because of the war psychology prevailing in England and the weak position of Chamberlain it was [currently] beyond to power of the [Air] Ministry [to move] in the desired direction of a termination of hostilities.’ However, he commented that de Ropp had also informed him that certain top men within the Air Ministry felt that Britain would agree to peace if ‘considerable losses on the part of the British Air Force and the related effects on the Empire [occurred]. It is believed then that the views represented by the Air Ministry would have to be taken into account, since the Empire could not permit its air strength to be reduced beyond a certain point.’³⁶

      At a meeting held a week later de Ropp went further. He informed the Germans that the British Air Ministry, whom he was now clearly claiming to represent, was extremely concerned about the possible politico-economic damage Britain and Germany would sustain if the conflict became a protracted war. This, it was claimed, would lead to ‘the decline of the West, of the Aryan race, and the era of the Bolshevization of Europe, including England’. De Ropp’s next statements caused the surprised German official to report back СКАЧАТЬ