10th May, 1941 :Rudolf Hess, deputy leader of the Nazi Party, flies to Britain. Hess drops by parachute from his Messerschmitt 110 on the village of Eaglesham in Lanarkshire, not far from Dungavel House, home of the Duke of Hamilton. (Hess had met the Duke during the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games.) He is captured by the Home Guard and asks to be taken to the Duke; he tell him who he is, and that he is the bearer of a peace plan. Britain, he maintains, will never be able to win the struggle with Germany, and it is desirable and necessary to find some form of agreement between the two countries to bring the conflict to an end. Churchill is not interested in any such discussions, and in any case Hess is speaking purely for himself – Hitler has repudiated him the moment he hears of his ‘desertion’. The official Nazi announcement says that Hess is suffering from ‘a mental disorder’. The Nazi leader is therefore imprisoned, first in Buchanan Castle, later in the Tower of London, finally in a villa at Abergavenny in South Wales.
On 10 October 1945 he is to be taken to Nuremberg to be tried with the other Nazi criminals by the Allies.
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