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This article was downloaded by: [University of Liverpool]On: 09 October 2014, At: 11:36Publisher: Taylor & FrancisInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: MortimerHouse, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
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Fiction, Facts, and Forgeries: The “Revelations”of Peter and Martin Allen about the History of theSecond World WarErnst HaigerPublished online: 05 Oct 2012.
To cite this article: Ernst Haiger (2006) Fiction, Facts, and Forgeries: The “Revelations” of Peter and Martin Allen aboutthe History of the Second World War, Journal of Intelligence History, 6:1, 105-118
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/16161262.2006.10555127
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* I am very grateful to Prof. Reinhard R. Doerries for reading the manuscript with
scrupulous care and suggesting improvements. Dr Catherine Atkinson of the
Renaissance-Labor, Hanover, has polished up my English text.
1 “Lieber Herr Hitler...” 1939/40: So wollte der Herzog von Windsor den Frieden
retten (Inning: Druffel, 2001); Churchills Friedensfalle. Das Geheimnis des Heß-
Fluges 1941 (Stegen: Druffel, 2003); Das Himmler-Komplott 1943-1945 (Stegen:
Druffel, 2005).
2 E.g. Daily Telegraph, 2 and 4 July 2005, 2; Sunday Times, 3 July 2005, 15;
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 4 July 2005, 29; Der Spiegel (4 July 2005): 131..
The Journal of Intelligence History 6 (Summer 2006)
Fiction, Facts, and Forgeries: The “Revelations” of Peter and Martin Allen about the History of the Second World War*
Ernst Haiger
The British author Martin Allen has written three books on the history of World
War II: Hidden Agenda: How the Duke of Windsor Betrayed the Allies
(London: Macmillan, 2000); The Hitler/Hess Deception: British Intelligence’s
Best Kept Secret of the Second World War (London: Harper Collins, 2003); and
Himmler’s Secret War: The Covert Peace Negotiations of Heinrich Himmler
(London: Chrysalis Books, 2005). In all three books M. Allen claims to reveal
secrets that the British Establishment does not want revealed. The author and
his books are thus popular in “revisionist” circles in Britain and Germany
(translations of his books have been published by a German right-wing
publisher). His works do not meet standards of academic historiography and1
are teeming with wrong statements and with false, sometimes absurd interpreta-
tions of sources.
Last year historians, who had hitherto almost completely ignored Martin
Allen’s work, were obliged to take note of it. In July 2005 the press reported on
forged papers that had been planted among genuine documents in certain files
of the British National Archives. These were papers with which Allen wanted2
to demonstrate in his book on Himmler’s Secret War that the head of the SS did
not commit suicide in British custody, but was killed by British intelligence
agents with the knowledge of Winston Churchill to prevent him from talking
to the Americans when interrogated by them about contacts with Britain in the
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106 Ernst Haiger
War. Forensic examination has well and truly shown that these papers are
forgeries: letterheads on correspondence supposedly written in 1945 were
created on a modern laser-printer; under the ink of the greeting and signature
of a letter a pencil guide was revealed in infrared-light; letters allegedly from
two different government departments were written with the same typewriter.
The National Archives launched an official examination und gave the matter to
the police.
Allen denied all previous knowledge that the papers were bogus, and of
course it is only fair to give him the benefit of the doubt. But the press
recollected that he had once before come under suspicion of manipulating
evidence. In the book Hidden Agenda on the Duke of Windsor, a key “source”
is a letter allegedly written by the Duke to Hitler (beginning: “Lieber Herr
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Fiction, Facts, and Forgeries 107
3 M. Allen, „Lieber Herr Hitler,” 22-23, 182, 347.
4 Peter Bower, Leslie Dick, Robert Radley, see Sunday Times, 3 July 2005, 15.
5 R 58/572, fol. 80-81v, Bundesarchiv Berlin (BAB).
6 The Schellenberg Memoirs (London: Andre Deutsch, 1956), 127ff.; cf. Bernd
Martin, Friedensinitiativen und Machtpolitik im Zweiten Weltkrieg 1939-1942
(Düsseldorf: Droste, 1974), 277-279; Reinhard R. Doerries, Hitler’s Last Chief of
Foreign Intelligence: Allied Interrogations of Walter Schellenberg
(London/Portland, Or.: Frank Cass, 2003), 15-17.
7 Documents on German Foreign Policy (DGFP), ser. D vol. X (London: HMSO,
1957)/ Akten zur deutschen auswärtigen Politik (ADAP), Ser. D Bd. X (Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1963), v. index of ADAP s.v. Windsor.
8 Peter Allen, The Crown, 212 ff.: “‘Victor’ was Rudolf Hess”; “there is no doubt [!]
about his [Heydrich’s] identity as ‘C’”.
9 Heydrich wrote a letter to foreign minister von Ribbentrop, dated “Berlin, den 27.
Juli 1940", DGFP/ADAP D X no. 247; Schellenberg asked the Foreign Ministry to
inform Heydrich about his plans, which would have been nonsense if Heydrich had
been in Lisbon; see telegram sent by the Ambassador in Madrid Eberhard von
Stohrer to the Auswärtiges Amt on 26 July 1940: “Schellenberg requests that the
Hitler!”). Commenting on the provenance of the letter Allen remarked that it3
had been given to his late father, the author Peter Allen, by Albert Speer! This
piece of writing, a facsimile of which is reproduced in the book, has been
exposed by three experts as a fake.4
There is another story in this book based on false evidence which Martin
Allen may have taken bona fide from his father’s book on the Duke of Windsor:
The Crown and the Swastika. Hitler, Hess and the Duke of Windsor (London:
Robert Hale, 1983). After the fall of France the Duke of Windsor, then serving
as liaison officer with the French army, went to Spain. On the Spanish
government’s initiative the Germans tried to get in contact there with the Duke,
who had voiced anti-Churchill and pro-peace sentiments. Walter Schellenberg
of the German Secret Service was sent to the Iberian Peninsula to induce the
Duke to settle down in a neutral country as a virtual ally of the German
government. We are informed about this affair by short notes written by
Schellenberg and his memoirs and by correspondence between the German5 6
embassies in Spain and Portugal and the German Foreign Ministry. Peter Allen7
claims to have read in these sources that Reinhard Heydrich and Rudolf Hess
also went to Portugal, thus supposedly revealing the identities of those acting
under the code names “C.” and “Viktor” in the sources. It is quite correct that8
Heydrich was often called “C” in the SS-Sicherheitsdienst (SD), following the
example of the British Secret Service, they so admired, but the person called
“C.” in connection with the Windsor affair was not Heydrich (who stayed in
Berlin) ; it was a Portuguese police or intelligence officer whom Schellenberg9
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108 Ernst Haiger
Chief of the Security Police [Heydrich] be informed of the planning” (ADAP/DGFP
D X no. 235).
10 Schellenberg’s note, 26 July 1940: “Sofort [on arrival in Lisbon] durch Vermittlung
W i n z e r’s Verbindung mit C. aufgenommen. C. mit allem einverstanden, erklärt,
die Sicherheit für ‘Willi’ [i.e. the Duke of Windsor] garantieren zu können” (R 58/
572, fol. 80, BAB). Schellenberg would not need a “Vermittlung” to contact his
superior Heydrich.
11 One of the reasons: Hess did not fly this Me 110 before November 1940, cf. Rainer
F. Schmidt, Rudolf Heß – “Botengang eines Toren”? Der Flug nach Großbritan-
nien vom 10. Mai 1941 (Düsseldorf: Econ, 1997), 157.
12 See letter of Karl to Albrecht Haushofer of Jan. 31, 1935, Hans-Adolf Jacobsen,
Karl Haushofer: Leben und Werk (Boppard: Boldt, 1979), 2: 185, doc. 103.
13 I am obliged to Dr Josef Henke of the Bundesarchiv for checking from which BA
documents Peter Allen had obtained photocopies. Among these photocopies is none
which contains the information given by Peter Allen.
contacted through the Police-Attaché at the German embassy in Spain, Paul
Winzer, on arriving in Lisbon. Nor can the person with the code name10
“Viktor”, who interviewed the Duke of Windsor on 28 July 1940 in Lisbon, be
identified as Hess. Peter Allen’s first argument for identifying him as such reads
as follows: “The particular aircraft he [Hess] normally flew was a Messer-
schmitt 110 [...], its number VJ-OQ, giving it the call sign ‘V’ for Viktor, an
obvious choice for a code name.” Being aware that this was not a strong
argument – in fact a thoroughly unconvincing one – he adds “stronger11
evidence”. He quotes from an alleged telegram sent by Schellenberg on 28 July
1940 which “was adressed to ‘A.H.’ and reads: ‘Just a note to keep you
informed. Our friend ‘Tomo’ met with ‘C’ and ‘Willi’ [code name for the Duke
of Windsor in the Schellenberg notes] this morning. Seven points plan was
discussed in detail.” Allen identifies “A.H.” as Albrecht Haushofer, son of
Hess’s old friend, the geopolitician Karl Haushofer, and “Tomo” as Hess –
“tomo(dachi)”, the Japanese word for “friend”, being the code name for Hess
in the Haushofer family’s correspondence – and he comes to the conclusion12
that the “Viktor” who called on the Duke of Windsor in Lisbon was the Deputy
Führer. For the general reader that might sound like a convincing story, but
among “the German cables” of which Peter Allen has obtained photocopies
from the Bundesarchiv there is no trace of this telegram which he quotes as
“Bundesarchiv Document no. E 147120", nor can there be, since this sort of
reference number does not exist. The “document” is a pure invention of Peter13
Allen. “Viktor” is in fact a Spanish emissary (“V-Mann”) of the Spanish
Minister of the Interior sent to Lisbon to persuade the Duke and Duchess of
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Fiction, Facts, and Forgeries 109
14 Cf. Schellenberg’s notes, Sunday 28 July (R 58/572 fol. 80v, BAB): “‘Viktor’ wird
erwartet [...] ‘Viktor’ war bei ‘Willi’ [Windsor]. Dieser bittet um 48 Stunden
Bedenkzeit”. Ambassador von Stohrer’s tel. of 30 July (ADAP/DGFP D X no. 257):
“The Spanish Minister of the Interior just informed me that his confidential emissary
talked with the Duke on Sunday [July 28] [...]. The Duke [...] stated only that he
must think the matter over. He would give his answer after 48 hours.”
15 Schellenberg’s notes, 31 July: “In der Nacht zum 1.8.40 Ausarbeitung der 7 Punkte:
Blumenstrauss [“a bouquet was delivered at the house <the Windsors’ quarters>
with a note which said: ‘Beware of the machinations of the British Secret Service
– a Portuguese friend who has your interests at heart.’”, Schellenberg Memoirs,
139], Festnahme eines Verdächtigen auf dem Schiff, Liste über mitfahrende
Emigranten wird Philipps [private secretary to the Duke] überreicht, Mitteilung
durch höchste Stellen über in 4 Tagen beginnende Offensive”; 1 August: “[3 further
measures] Die 7 Punkte sind durchgeführt”. Cf. for these measures Schellenberg’s
tel. from Lisbon of Aug. 2, 1940, ADAP/DGFP D X no. 277. – Peter Allen refers
to “Blumenstrauss” as a person: the German documents he has seen “contain
indisputable references to both Hess and Heydrich as well as to Primo de Rivera,
Winzer [..], Blumenstrauss and others [...]”! Peter (and Martin) Allen’s command
of the German language appears inadequate, to put it politely.
16 Daily Telegraph, 12 August 2005; I have only checked the authenticity of papers
presented as documents in this book in so far as they are of interest for my own
research work on Albrecht Haushofer (see my biographical essay in: Ernst Haiger,
Amelie Ihering and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, Albrecht Haushofer [Ebenhau-
sen: Langewiesche-Brandt, 2002], 7-98). My arguments derive from comparing
dubious papers with sources known to be authentic and identifying inconsistencies.
17 www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/news.
Windsor to go to Spain. And the “seven points plan”, which according to14
Peter Allen’s pseudo-document was “discussed in detail” by Hess and the Duke
of Windsor, was in fact Schellenberg’s plan for measures to deter the Duke
from sailing to the Bahamas, whither the British Government ordered him to
take up his office of governor. We will find traces of this story in Martin15
Allen’s book on Rudolf Hess.
In the present article I wish to demonstrate that the book The Hitler/Hess
Deception, too, is partly based on forged documents. The National Archives’
attention was drawn to these papers by me and the Archives’ staff and the16
police have extended their investigations accordingly. These have not yet been
concluded. On 22 February 2006 the National Archives informed the public in
an update of the News on their website on document authenticity that “seven17
files have been found to contain forged documents and withdrawn from public
access” and that “a number of other files have also been withdrawn to use for
comparative purposes during the forensic testing.” The National Archives have
confirmed that the papers exposed as forgeries in this article are among those
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110 Ernst Haiger
18 Letter by Dr David Thomas, National Archives, Director Collections and Technol-
ogy, of 10 July 2006.
19 Allen, Deception, 110.
20 CAB 127/206, National Archives Kew (NAK) (Allen cites the reference no. FO
898/306, but it was impossible to locate it. On being approached for help, Allen said
the reference number named above was correct). Facsimile in the German edition:
which are believed by them and their scientific advisers to be forged. In May18
2006 the Archives changed the rules for users “following the discovery of
forged documents in the archives”: only “notebooks or pads that are bound by
spiral wire, staples or stitching will be permitted” (update of 4 May). New
reader tickets have been introduced that include a photograph taken as part of
the ticket-issuing process; this change too “is part of our ongoing improvement
to our security practices” (update of 15 May).
What does the Hitler/Hess deception, as Martin Allen describes it, actually
mean? The British Government, knowing that Hitler desired peace with Britain,
allegedly wanted to make him believe that there was a strong “peace party” in
Britain which was willing and was able to bring down the Churchill govern-
ment and to make peace with Hitler. Former supporters of appeasement of
whom many people in Britain and in Germany thought that they still sympa-
thized with the idea of a negotiated peace, were now in fact loyal supporters of
Churchill and thus party to the “deception”. The aim was to lure Hitler, who
was to believe that he would not run a real risk of a war on two fronts because
of the activities of the “British peace party”, to go to war with Russia as the
only chance for Britain to win the war in the long run.
The “deception”, Martin Allen asserts, was put into effect by an intelligence
operation which was so very secret “that it is doubtful if it was ever [Martin
Allen’s italics] given an official title”. But “how do you refer to something with
no name?” Because “by a strange quirk of fate” the surnames of the main
protagonists on both sides of the Channel began with the letter “H” – Hitler,
Hess, Haushofer, Hoare, Halifax – the “operational title” “Messrs HHHH
operation” was adopted.19
Allen can only present two sources for the “operation” (For the author of
a conspiracy theory it is convenient that there are very few sources or indeed
no sources at all, because that is an argument for the existence of a conspiracy).
For the first source he only provides the reference number in the National
Archives: FO 837/593. Unfortunately it is not possible to locate a document
containing the information cited by Allen in this file (which is about Portugese
tinplate). Allen’s second “document” is a letter of the Minister of Economic
Warfare, Hugh Dalton, also in charge of the Special Operations Executive
(SOE), to Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden of 28 February, 1941. Dalton20
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Fiction, Facts, and Forgeries 111
Friedensfalle, 412.
21 Anthony Eden, Memoirs, vol. [III]: The Reckoning (London: Cassell, 1962), 190 ff.;
the author quotes from his diary entry of 12 February 1941: “Had difficulty in
getting away from this [a luncheon] and shedding Dalton in time to catch special
[train]”.
22 In 2004 Allen’s German cooperator and translator, the historian Dr Olaf Rose,
“revealed” and published in a German version the “recently released” F.O. memo.
“Summary of principal German Peace Feelers, September 1939-March 1941": Olaf
Rose, „’...unsere Einstellung gegenüber all diesen Angeboten ist in Zukunft
absolutes Schweigen!’ Ein sechzig Jahre gesperrtes Memorandum des Foreign
Office enthüllt die britische Ablehnung 16 deutscher und neutraler Friedensangebo-
te”, Deutschland in Geschichte und Gegenwart 52.4 (2004): 34-39, 34. This
document is, however, well known to historians and was published by Lothar
Kettenacker as early as 1977: Lothar Kettenacker, ed., Das “Andere Deutschland”
im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Emigration und Widerstand in internationaler Perspektive/
The “Other Germany” in the Second World War. Emigration and Resistance in
International Perspective (= Veröff. des Dt. Histor. Inst. London Bd. 2 / Publ. of the
German Hist. Inst. London vol.2) (Stuttgart: Ernst Klett, 1977), 164-87 (ibid. pp.
187-200 the continuation: “Summary of Principal Peace Feelers, April 1941 to June
1942").
states that he has “been in deep contemplation ever since the matter we
discussed yesterday with the P.M.” and feels he must express his concerns to
Eden “before we take any further actions”. He does not believe “we can be
morally justified to use it [i.e. the “Mssrs HHHH Operation”] to cause the
suggested end result” and he proposes to discuss the matter again with the
Foreign Secretary “next Saturday”. This document cannot be genuine. Dalton
could neither have discussed the “HHHH operation” with Eden and the Prime
Minister “yesterday”, i.e. on 27 February 1941, nor could he have proposed to
discuss it again with him “next Saturday”, for the simple reason that Eden had
left London for a long diplomatic mission to Egypt, Turkey and Greece on 12
February and he returned only on 10 April. To sum up: there is no documen-21
tary evidence for the “Messrs HHHH Operation”.
It is, of course, correct that Hitler urgently wished to make peace with
Britain and that the Churchill Government refused to do so and that their
attitude was one of “absolute silence” also to the peace feelers on the part of
German opponents against the Nazi regime – but that is well known and does
not need to be revealed by Martin Allen and his right wing friends. 22
But what Allen says about the alleged attempts of Hitler/Hess to contact one
of the leaders of the “peace party” is not based on sound source material. Sir
Samuel Hoare, a strong supporter of appeasement before the War and since
May 1940 British ambassador to Spain, was commonly seen (in Germany too)
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112 Ernst Haiger
23 “SECRET. Papal Nuncio. Memorandum”, 17 Nov. 1940, signed G.A.H., NAK, FO
371/26991, NAK, facs. in Friedensfalle, 406-407 doc. b.
24 David Stafford, Churchill and Secret Service (London: Murray, 1997), 209; Graham
D. Macklin, “Major Hugh Pollard, MI6, and the Spanish Civil War,” The Historical
Journal 49.1 (2006): 277-80, 280.
not to be opposed to the idea of a negotiated peace. According to Allen his anti-
Churchill statements were only mimicry, and he was an eager supporter of the
Prime Minister’s policy and entangled in the “Messrs HHHH Operation”.
(Whether Hoare only wanted to deceive the Germans or whether he meant what
he said could be judged better, if the whole of his correspondence with the F.O.
were made accessible to the public).
Hitler launched his peace offers, according to Martin Allen, via his deputy
Rudolf Hess, Hess’s old friend, the general and professor Karl Haushofer and
the latter’s son Albrecht. Both Haushofers are presented as Hitler’s close
advisers – a gross overestimation of their influence in the Third Reich. Albrecht
Haushofer, says Martin Allen, called on Hoare in Madrid in July 1940, “when
the last round of peace offers were made”. As evidence he cites a “document”
which he presents as a “memorandum” of 17 November 1940 by a certain
“G.A.H.” on an encounter between Sir Samuel Hoare and the Papal Nuncio in
Spain, who had communicated a peace offer transmitted to him by Albrecht
Haushofer on behalf of the German government. According to Allen,23
“G.A.H.” is Captain Gareth Alan Hillgarth, naval attaché at the British embassy
in Madrid.
This text is dubious on purely formal grounds. Would the naval attaché be
present at a meeting of his ambassador with the Papal Nuncio on a very delicate
matter? And would he have written a memorandum on this conversation, if he
had not been present? For Allen’s argument, however, it is important that
Captain Hillgarth was involved, because he worked for the Secret Service,
organised the covert activities of the SOE in Spain and was an unofficial
intelligence adviser to Winston Churchill.24
The contents of the “documents” are equally dubious.
1. “G.A.H.” states that the “APA representative Haushofer” had met Hoare.
But Haushofer was not a representative of the “APA”, i.e. Außenpolitisches
Amt of the NSDAP, headed by Alfred Rosenberg (he worked for another
agency, the “Dienststelle Ribbentrop”). It might be argued that Captain
Hillgarth did not know that – but rather than “APA” would he not sooner
write something like “a Nazi Party agency for foreign affairs”?
2. I am quite sure that Haushofer did not stay for peace talks with Hoare in
Spain in July 1940:
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Fiction, Facts, and Forgeries 113
25 Memo. by A. Haushofer: “Gibt es noch Möglichkeiten eines deutsch-englischen
Friedens?”, “Streng geheim”, N 1122/937c, Bundesarchiv Koblenz (BAK), publ. by
Jacobsen, Karl Haushofer, 2: 458-61, doc. no. 246.
26 Facs. Allen, Friedensfalle, 401-405 doc. a.
27 See A. Haushofer’s memo. “Gedanken zur Friedensordnung” (Nov. 1941), Ursula
Laack-Michel, Albrecht Haushofer und der Nationalsozialismus: Ein Beitrag zur
Zeitgeschichte (Stuttgart: Klett, 1974), 395 doc. no 100.
– In a note about an interview with Hess on 8 September 1940 Haushofer
writes that he had said to Hess that he did not know Hoare well (“den ich
persönlich nicht gut kenne, zu dem ich mir aber jederzeit einen persönli-
chen Weg eröffnen könne”); that argues against negotiations with Hoare
in July 1940 on Hess’s behalf. This note is undoubtedly genuine. It is25
published in Allen’s book too, but the author does not try to clear up26
the inconsistency.
– Haushofer never writes or indicates that he stayed in Spain during
World War II. To be sure, this is only an argumentum e silentio, but
considering the rich evidence on Haushofer’s life it can be considered a
substantial one.
3. Even given the fact that Hitler was eager to come to terms with Britain,
the conditions of peace which Haushofer is said to have proposed via the
Papal Nuncio on behalf of the German government – before the beginning
of negotiations – are implausible, e.g. negotiations about “a form of
reparation for damage inflicted during conquest” of the occupied countries
in Western and Northern Europe. And it is unlikely that Haushofer should
have proposed that Germany request the restitution of the former German
colonies, but that “Southwest Africa might not be claimed”: it was Hausho-
fer’s opinion that in case of an Anglo-German colonial agreement –
discussed in the thirties (“colonial appeasement”) – on no account would
Britain cede the former German colony of East Africa (Tanganyika).27
Martin Allen reports on a further German emissary to the Iberian peninsula in
July without connecting the two missions: Rudolf Hess. Allen presents here a
drastically abridged version of his father’s and his own tale about Hess’s flight
to Lisbon, reduced to one single sentence: “The only clues to have surfaced [on
alleged negotiations of the Duke of Windsor with representatives of the German
government in Lisbon] allude to a seven-point plan, which was of sufficient
importance for Hess secretly to meet the Duke in the privacy of the Sacramento
a Lapa home of the German Ambassador to Portugal, [Oswald von] Hoyningen-
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114 Ernst Haiger
28 Allen, Deception, 76. In the German version (Friedensfalle, 104-105), at times
incorrect, the following sentences are added: “Interessanterweise wurden Albrecht
Haushofer und Rudolf Heß an diesem Punkt in den Versuch hineingezogen, eine
Friedensabmachung mit dem Herzog von Windsor auszuhandeln. Ihr Eingreifen
zeigt, daß Hitler gerade diesen Verhandlungsstrang als zu wichtig erachtete, um ihn
in den wenig erfolgreichen Händen seines Außenministers zu belassen. Es stand
zuviel auf dem Spiel, als daß man sich hätte noch weitere Fehler erlauben können.
Das Eingreifen von Heß und Haushofer zu diesem Zeitpunkt ist ein Beweis dafür,
wie ernst die deutsche Führung die Windsor-Friedensinitiative nahm”. Cf. Olaf
Rose, “Warum Rudolf Heß 1941 nicht verhandeln durfte,” Deutschland in
Geschichte und Gegenwart 52. 1 (2004): 20-23: “So flog er [Hess] mit seiner Me-
110 (Kennung VJ-OQ) am 28. Juli 1940 von Augsburg nach Lissabon, um dort den
überaus deutschfreundlichen britischen Ex-Monarchen Edward VIII. [...] zu treffen.
Dieser wollte als Kontaktmann zu friedensbereiten Engländern wirken. [...] Einen
‘7 Punkte-Friedensplan’ hatte man bereits mit dem Herzog von Windsor erörtert
[...]” (p. 20).
29 Sir Samuel Hoare to Sir Alexander Cadogan, 26 March 1941, FO 794/19, NAK,
facs. Allen, Friedensfalle, 413.
30 Cf. supra on “APA”.
31 That would have casted further suspicion on ethnic Germans abroad of being the
„Fifth Column” of Nazi Germany, see Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, Nationalsozialistische
Außenpolitik 1933-1938 (Frankfurt am Main / Berlin: Alfred Metzner, 1968), 107,
110, 197 ff.
Huene, on Sunday, 28 July 1940, for a series of secret meetings.” Remarkably,28
he gives no evidence whatsoever for this terse information, which must be
bewildering to the reader. Maybe he had discovered in his father’s papers letters
accusing him of having invented evidence in his Windsor book.
Allen maintains he has unearthed a letter by Sir Samuel Hoare of 26 March
1941 to Sir Alexander Cadogan, Permanent Under Secretary of the F.O., about
“a further meeting with [Albrecht] Haushofer at the home of [the former
Spanish foreign minister Juan] Beigbeder” in Madrid.29
I repeat that I do not think that Haushofer ever had talks with Hoare in
Madrid during World War II. One sentence is particularly dubious: “H[ausho-
fer] informed me that it has already been arranged for their Head of the AO to
journey anywhere, if it would resolve the impasse”. Would Sir Alexander know
what “AO” was (Auslandsorganisation of the NSDAP for party members living
abroad) and who “the Head of the AO” was (Gauleiter Ernst Bohle)? And30
Haushofer would never have involved Bohle in any peace feelers; he had been
opposed to Bohle and his organisation since 1933 because Bohle wanted to
organise the Volksdeutsche too, i.e. the German-speaking subjects of other
states – something that would be detrimental to German Volkstumspolitik.31
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Fiction, Facts, and Forgeries 115
32 Allen, Deception, 191 ff.
33 Ibid. p. 223. Allen often leaves himself a loop hole by modifying his statements in
the following manner: “Despite the likelyhood that Hess’s personal ambitions were
the primary factor behind his taking Bohle’s place on the mission to Scotland, the
fact that Bohle himself was never told he was to fly to Britain[!] suggests Hitler and
Hess had always secretly planned for Hess to meet the ‘close representative’ of
Britain’s head of state” (p. 192).
34 Ibid.
35 This plane usually required a crew of two, but in Oct. 1940 Hess had “asked for
special radio equipment to be fitted. This was too large and cumbersome to fit into
the cockpit, and was instead installed in the navigator’s seat”, according to the late
Helmut Kaden, chief Messerschmitt test pilot in 1940, see Lynn Picknett, Clive
Prince and Stephan Prior, Double Standards: The Rudolf Hess Cover-up (London:
Time Warner Books UK, 2002), 169 f. (first published by Little, Brown & Co,
2001).
36 FO 371/60508, NAK, not published by Allen. The text in question, a carbon copy
on flimsy paper, is part of a file relating to press reports about the implication of
Carl Jacob Burckhardt as intermediary between German and British peace moves
in 1941.
37 I am grateful to Paulette Thompson of the National Archives for sending me a
photocopy.
Why is there mention of a journey by Bohle “to resolve the impasse” of the top-
secret talks between Hitler-Hess-Haushofer and the “British peace party”?
Allen makes the fantastic assertion, that it was Gauleiter Bohle who was to fly
to Scotland as the representative of the German government and that Hess
decided only at the very last moment to fly in Bohle’s place, motivated by
personal ambition. But that is entirely mistaken: Hess “had spent months32
meticulously planning his flight”, as Allen correctly states himself, Bohle33
according to Allen “was never told he was to fly to Britain” (!) and Bohle34
would not have been able to pilot a Me 110 to Scotland.35
Dubious and absurd interpretations of sources are Martin Allen’s speciality.
I conclude with two examples. According to a document of in my opinion
questionable authenticity (the document may be genuine but Allen’s36
interpretation is absurd) two agents of the British Secret Service called on Karl
Haushofer at his farm Hartschimmelhof in Upper Bavaria on the very day of his
and his wife’s suicide (Sunday 10 March 1946). According to the text a “Mr.
Hopkinson” sent a cable from Bern to the Foreign Office: “Attention Mr.
Kirkpatrick. Further to your instruction of 8th March, K. Haushofer was visited
on 10th March. After interrogation it was apparent the gentleman knew nothing
further on the subject in question. In response to our instructions the problem
concerning this man and the IMT has now been removed.”37
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116 Ernst Haiger
38 Allen, Deception, xxvii.
39 Stefan Scheil, 1940/41: Die Eskalation des Zweiten Weltkriegs (Munich: Olzog,
2005), 15.
40 “Ich bin [...] damit einverstanden, daß insbesondere mit Hinblick auf den
Gesundheitszustand des Zeugen Dr. Haushofer an diesen lediglich ein Fragebogen
[English text: „interrogatory”] gerichtet wird.” (Der Prozeß gegen die Hauptkriegs-
verbrecher vor dem Internationalen Militärgerichtshof, vol. 8: Verhandlungs-
niederschriften, 20. Febr. 1946 – 7. März 1946, Nuremberg 1947, 691-693). – Karl
Haushofer’s son Heinz states in a memorandum about his parents’ suicide (see
below fn. 45) that shortly before Karl Haushofer had been informed via a message
given on the radio that Hess’s defence counsel did not want him to be called to
Nuremberg as a witness for the defence out of consideration for his state of health:
that gave him the feeling of being freed of all obligations in this world.
41 The Trial of Major German War Criminals: Proceedings (London: HMSO, 1947),
8: 222.
42 Allen, Deception, xxvi-xxvii.
Allen asserts that these two men (why two?) were “almost certainly” “the
last people to see the Haushofers alive,” thus suggesting that they killed the38
couple to prevent Karl Haushofer from revealing the “Hitler/Hess peace offers”
in the witness-stand in Nuremberg. The historian Stefan Scheil who throughout
adopts Martin Allens theories adds ominously that 3 days before Karl Hausho-
fer’s death Hess’s defence counsel Dr Alfred Seidl requested to call him as a
witness to Nuremberg, thus suggesting that the British had to fear his testimony
about the “Hitler/Hess peace overtures.” That is not quite correct. Dr Seidl39
requested the evidence, (a) restricted to the charge of the “Fith Column”
activities of Auslandsorganisation, Deutsches Auslandsinstitut and Volkbund
für das Deutschtum im Ausland, by their respective former heads, Bohle, Karl
Strölin and Karl Haushofer and (b) he did not insist on the presence of Karl
Haushofer in Nuremberg: This procedure would not give Dr Seidl the chance40
to examine Karl Haushofer in court about the “Hitler/Hess peace feelers”. Sir
David Maxwell–Fyfe, British member of the prosecution, had “no objection to
interrogation” (by interrogatory) of Karl Haushofer.41
A man is said to have committed suicide, but in fact he was killed by British
agents to silence him: this story reminds us of Martin Allen’s book on the
“murder” of Heinrich Himmler. Allen spins out his fable, writing that Karl
Haushofers’s son Heinz “two days later, on Tuesday, 12 March [...], puzzled by
his inability to contact his parents on the phone, went to Hartschimmelhof. He
found the house deserted, although the lights within were burning. With
increasing concern, Heinz [Haushofer] searched the substantial house, before
moving on to the grounds and the surrounding forest. An hour later [...] Heinz
Haushofer found his parents.” This story is a pure invention, the real events42
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Fiction, Facts, and Forgeries 117
43 IRR Pers. Files, XE000655: Karl Haushofer, fol. 9-11, RG 319, NARA. Allen
states, ibid.: “The local police, together with the American authorities, investigated
the matter in some detail, but after all the horrors of the war, and with the desperate
state of Germany in the spring of 1946, resources and time were limited, and the
Haushofers’ deaths were officially recorded as suicides.” Allen does not seem to be
aware of this police record.
44 Cf. H. Haushofer’s statement (in the Haushofer Papers, N 1122/960, BAK)
“Erklärung über die Gründe des Selbstmordes meiner Eltern Karl und Martha
Haushofer”, drafted on 14 March 1946 for Father Edmund A. Walsh, S.J.,
Georgetown University professor of geopolitics, who had interrogated Karl
Haushofer as special consultant to IMT Justice Jackson. – Cf. Jacobsen, Karl
Haushofer, vol. 1, 443 ff. about the Haushofers’ suicide and the motives for it.
45 Letter by K. to Albrecht Haushofer, 3 Sept. 1940, publ. by Jacobsen, Karl Haus-
hofer, 2: 452-55, 454 doc. no. 243 (Allen quotes the Haushofer correspondence
only from the microfilmed records at the US National Archives and not from the
books by Jacobsen on Karl and by Laack-Michel on Albrecht Haushofer he has
listed in his bibliography); Allen, Deception, 89 ff.
46 See J. Andreas Schmeller, Bayerisches Wörterbuch, 2. vermehrte Ausgabe bearbei-
tet von G. Karl Frommann (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1872) 1:, col. 317; cf. Hermann
Fischer, Schwäbisches Wörterbuch (Tübingen: Laupp’sche Buchhandlung, 1904)
1: col. 1571.
were quite different. Karl Haushofer and his wife did not live alone on their
farm, Heinz Haushofer and his family lived in another building on the estate,
the nursemaid slept in the parents’ house, a cook lived there too. A record
drafted by the local police of 11 March proves what had really happened:43
when Heinz Haushofer wanted to call on his parents in the morning of 11
March, he found farewell letters on their beds and a sketch by Karl Haushofer
of the place where the son would find the corpses (these documents are in the
Haushofer Papers) and where he did find them. The cook had been at home and
she had been ordered by Mrs Haushofer to fetch a clothes line, which was
instrumental in the suicide. There is not a word about two British visitors in the
record. Heinz Haushofer testified that his father had been contemplating suicide
for a long time.44
The most absurd and laughable misinterpretation of sources in Allen’s book
is the interpretation of the word “Butzelware” in a letter by Karl to Albrecht
Haushofer. The father refers to his son’s comment that when summoned by45
Ribbentrop to Vienna he had had a wonderful flight over the Salzkammergut
and an unexpected reunion with the “Butzelware” in Vienna. This word
signifies in the Bavarian dialect – the Haushofers are Bavarians – “little
children,” and in this letter it means Heinz Haushofer’s children, then living46
in Vienna. But Allen knows better: This must be a code! “Pronounced
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118 Ernst Haiger
47 Allen, Deception, 90-91. Incidentally, in this letter Karl Haushofer openly says that
Hess had informed him about Hitler’s wish to come to terms with Britain – no code
was needed in transmitting this information to Albrecht Haushofer.
48 Ibid., 12 ff., 27 ff.
49 Allen, Deception, Acknowledgements, xiii-xiv.
phonetically” it becomes “Botselwahr”. In an “old German dictionary published
in Stuttgart in 1893" Allen found out, “that ‘Bote’ means messenger, and ‘wahr’
means ‘faithful’ or ‘genuine’. Thus Albrecht was being discreetly told to return
[...] for an ‘unexpected reunion’ with the genuine/faithful messenger – someone
who could be trusted to deliver a truthful message. Karl Haushofer was in effect
telling his son that the Führer finally wanted a genuine peace with the British,
and that he should go to a meeting near Berchtesgaden with Hess to give his
assistance.” Martin Allen is clearly quite serious about this nonsense. But it47
is difficult to understand why anyone else has taken this book seriously.
Apart from the absurdities of interpretation and the presentation of not very
sophisticated forgeries – whoever may have fabricated them for whatever
reasons – the book teems with false statements on well known facts, e.g. about
Karl and Albrecht Haushofer (It is evident that Allen has not read the books48
and articles listed in his bibliography that are written in German, nor has he
contacted all the people “connected either by family relationship to or
exceptional knowledge of the main personalities or events of 1940-41, who
extended me their assistance”). Perhaps Allen should have written a novel49
“The Butzelware Code”. The books he has written are more fiction than
historiography – but professing to tell true stories.
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