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A startling, revelatory history of Rudolf Hess´s 1941 flight to Scotland, containing new evidence of his aims, and of official British suppression of them.

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When Hitler´s deputy Rudolf Hess set off for Britain on a peace mission in May 1941, he launched one of the great mysteries of the Second World War. Had he really acted alone, without Hitler´s knowledge? Who were the British he had come to see? Was British intelligence involved?
Award-winning historian Peter Padfield presents striking new evidence that demands the wholesale reappraisal of the episode. For, allied to a powerful argument that Hess must have had both Hitler´s backing and considerable encouragement from Britain, Padfield demonstrates that he also brought with him a draft peace treaty committing Hitler to the evacuation of occupied European countries. Made public, this would have destroyed Churchill´s campaign to bring the United States into the war.

Expertly woven into a compelling narrative that touches on Lord (Victor) Rothschild and the Cambridge spy ring, possible British foreknowledge of Operation Barbarossa and the ´final solution´, MI6´s use of Hess to prevent the bombing of London and the mysterious circumstances of his death in Spandau prison - including the previously unseen witness accounts from that day - Hess, Hitler and Churchill is among the most important history books of recent years.

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´This grippingly readable book gives the fullest and most convincing exposition of one of the 20th century´s strangest stories.´ Nigel Jones Sunday Telegraph

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Peter Padfield is an award-winning naval and Nazi-period historian whose most recent books were the Maritime Supremacy trilogy (John Murray), awarded the Mountbatten Maritime Prize.

Powerful, pacey and genuinely revelatory.

´A fascinating work of historical investigation.´ Daily Telegrapgh

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