Manawatu Evening Standard. WEDNESDAY, MAY 14, 1941. THE HESS SENSATION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 139, 14 May 1941, Page 6

Manawatu Evening Standard. WEDNESDAY, MAY 14, 1941. THE HESS SENSATION.

For ihe time being facts behind the amazing flight, of lludolph Hess, the trusted colleague of Hitler, from the side of his Fuehrer to Britain, the local point of Nazi hatred, trill be a matter of conjecture, but there is food for profound thought in the story that has been told the German people by the official Nazi Party concerning it. Deliberately the truth has been concealed by Uie Nazis; the allegation that the mind of Hess was deranged will suit the purpose of hiding the facts, and it is safest not to ash too many questions in Germany to-day. It is plain from the very nature of the flight, the machine in which it was accomplished, the careful manner in which Hess chose his route —away from the principal points of aerial battle — and his demeanour after landing in Scotland, that he is perfectly sane. Indeed, as-one commentator has subtly expressed it, his mental derangement may have taken the form that he sees his country cannot win the war; he may have been suspected of thinking this by his fellow leaders in the Nazi Party, and consequently realised the necessity of leaving Germany, and doing so quickly, if he were to avoid being slain as other prominent Germans already have been. In short. Hess is really a fugitive from those whose closest henchman he has been for so long. Those who recall June, 1934, that fateful month in Germany when Hitler directed the purge which caused the blood of those who disagreed with him on matters of policy—and many who were quite inocent —to run so freely will readily understand that the Fuehrer would not hesitate to order the execution even of Hess, it he suspected him of lukewarmness toward the belief in a Nazi victory. Hess has been growing in power in recent years and it may be that this alone, with its chances of swaying the people, has placed him in peril of Hitler’s fury. It has been shown repeatedly that all who attempt to influence Nazi policy counter to Hitler’s course, even only to the extent of offering friendly advice, risk death or, what is perhaps worse, the horrors ol the concentration camp. The brutal murders of leading civilians and high army officers have proved that. What the Nazis arc pleased to term the hallucinations of Hess are perhaps the kind of thoughts which ran through the minds of others before him who divined the real madness of Hitler, Goering, and Goebbels and where it was leading them. In that case Hess had no other course than escape, and the method he adopted was about the only one left to him, since a long journey over land in any direction from Berlin would most probably have re-

sulted in his discovery. It was a well-planned escape, and must have had the connivance of others. It betrays a division in the Nazi Party that must have tremendous repercussions. It may well be the forerunner of many more incidents leading to the truth being told about Germany.