PEACE OVERTURES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26043, 5 January 1946, Page 5

PEACE OVERTURES

“reasonable: britons” REPORT TO HITLER FOUND HERR HESS’S ACTIVITIES (Rec. 11 p.m.) NUREMBERG, Jan. 4, Hitler’s geopolitician, Haushofer, in September, 1940, wrote to the Duke of Hamilton at Hess’s request in an attempt to establish "contact.” This is admitted in a 1400-word report which is now in the possession of Allied intelligence officers. Haushofer’s report attributes to a moderate group in England in April, 1941, readiness to talk peace terms on the basis of—First, recognition of Britain’s paramount interest in Greece, but only a nominal interest elsewhere in Eastern and South-eastern Europe; secondly, restoration of the occupied Western European States; thirdly, confinement of the German colonial demands to former German territory and a modification of the Italian demands. Allied intelligence officers also possess a message from Haushofer to Hess, written in September, 1940, suggesting methods of getting information to the Duke of Hamilton. There is not the slightest hint in either Haushofer’s report to Hitler or the letter to Hess of peace efforts motivated by a knowledge of the forthcoming German invasion of Russia. Haushofer’s report, after warning Hitler that the English masses were waging war with religious fanaticism, adds: “If there is an element in Britain eager for peace, it is the plutocracy, which is able to calculate when it will he destroyed, together with the native British tradition.” Haushofer lists reasonable Britons, including “ a leading group of younger Conservatives, of whom many are Scots,” as well as two peers and three Under-secretaries of State, who he claimed were closely related to the Court through blood and marriage, and were linked with older Conservatives. among whom he mentioned two lords and one ambassador. Haushofer then listed “ a so-called round-table circle of younger Imperialists and colonial Empire politicians.” Haushofer's report was his death warrant. The Gestapo recorded him as having “ sympathetic feelings and contacts with the English.” He was executed last year for possible implication in the 1944 Hitler bomb plot and engaging in secret peace negotiations.