May 11th 1941 — Berchtesgaden. The day after Rudolf Hess took off from Augsburg and hadn't yet returned or sent any signal, Adolf Hitler had to say something to justify Hess' so far unexplained disappearance. Not least for the benefit of the German nation and his then trading ally, Soviet Russia.
Consequently he authorised a statement saying that Hess was suffering from a mental derangement and had succeeded in obtaining an aeroplane against the strict orders of the Fuhrer. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, but an explanation had at least been proffered before British propaganda commenced. The unlikely explanation has however proven durable, some still believing it to be true 80 years later.
In this, their eighth book on the affair, Harris and Wilbourn demonstrate that far from being a random act, the flight had been meticulously planned, using state of the art German radio technology. Using contemporary equipment, maps and charts they demonstrate the true nature and character of the flight and explain what went wrong, leading to the sensational and very public arrival of Rudolf Hess in Scotland at 23.09hrs on May 10th 1941.
