Camp Z by Stephen McGinty

Author:Stephen McGinty
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2015-10-27T16:00:00+00:00

While explaining that such rumour and speculation was only circulating by private conversation, Campbell explained that there was an ‘undefinable’ but widely held feeling of apprehension and uncertainty that was fertilising the ‘soil of German propaganda’. He felt most strongly that such a miasma of doubt over Britain’s fighting spirit should be removed immediately, and that ‘all possible steps be taken to dispel any misconception that His Majesty’s Government entertain the slightest intention of reaching a negotiated peace with Nazi Germany’. The point should be beaten like a drum ‘on all suitable occasions regardless of repetition’.

‘Hess is no more mad than Crippen, Judas Iscariot or Satan.’ So declared Major Vyvyan Adams, the MP for Leeds West, to the House of Commons. The fact that his diagnosis, impassioned and eloquent though it proved to be, was based on nothing more than a perusal of the daily newspapers, combined with a default setting that meant if German propaganda declared it day he would instinctively retire for the night, was exactly the point of the debate. Why had the British Government refused to release any information about Hess’s arrival?

The debate on 19 June had been instigated by the MP for Nelson and Colne, Mr Sydney Silverman, who had been frustrated by the Prime Minister’s previous refusal to answer his question, ‘whether he can now state the results of the investigation into the purpose of the arrival in this country of Rudolf Hess; whether Hess brought with him any proposals indicating how the problems of Europe might be solved?’ Winston Churchill had replied that he had no statement to make ‘at the present time’ and had rebuffed each supplementary question with ‘I have nothing to add to the answer I have given.’

In opening the debate, Silverman pointed out that conflicting statements had been issued by Cabinet members. The Minister Without Portfolio, Arthur Greenwood, had said, ‘When a man occupying such an important official position in the Nazi hierarchy as Hess flees his country and puts himself in the hands of the enemy, it looks as though all is not well on the German home front. Disunity, doubt and disillusionment are growing, and will continue to grow within the German Reich.’

In contrast, Herbert Morrison, the Minister for Home Security told his constituents in Hackney, ‘Hess, Hitler’s right-hand man, is, like the rest of them, a brutal thug, whose hands, like his master’s, are stained with some of the worst political crimes of modern times … This gangster is now in our hands. He is going to stay in our hands. It does not matter what kind of animal he is: whether he is Rat Number 1 or a Trojan horse, or just a baby panda sent over in the hope of finding innocents over here to play with, he is caged.’

If the Minister Without Portfolio viewed Hess’s arrival as a crack in the edifice, the Minister of Labour, Ernest Bevin, disagreed, and asserted that he had been dispatched with his leader’s blessing: ‘I do not believe that this gentleman came here without Hitler’s knowledge.

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