The Strange Case Of Rudolf Hess

Rudolf Hess landed by parachute in wartime Scotland on Saturday night, 10 May 1941. He was then Deputy Fuehrer of Nazi Germany at the height of its power; today he is the last-Nazi leader left in prison at Spandau, West Berlin. The questions posed by his mysterious flight and his subsequent behaviour remain unanswered, locked in Hess's mind. His curious actions were attributed to mental unsoundness. But was he really unsound? Or were his symptoms and loss of memory merely a sustained and successful hoax-as he himself afterwards maintained?