As soon as we accept the reality of a Hess imposter or double, the story takes a very unique turn. We now have a man trying to hide his identity from Britain’s secret services. We have a man trying to dupe the British government with a peace plan. We have a man who is serving as a decoy for the death of the real Rudolf Hess. Who killed the real Hess? Who organized the flight of the imposter to Scotland and trained the man?
We suppose Himmler and the S.S. are behind the plot. They are the ones who locate the Hess look-alike, train the man to be a decoy and send him to Scotland. Dr. Thomas surmises that Himmler’s goal was to get rid of a political rival and at the same time launch peace overtures to the British. Himmler felt that Germany’s chances of succeeding in a war with Russia would improve if Britain was out of the war.
It is quite common for criminals in murder cases to use a decoy to deflect blame from themselves. A man kills his wife in the home and then to fool the police, sends a decoy with his wife’s credit card to a distant city while the husband at home calls the police. The police suspect the husband, but a stolen credit card quickly puts them on a false trail. No one can ignore factual evidence and decoys are very effective for building bullet-proof alibis. So our theory is that Himmler used this common deception to deflect suspicion from the government and the party by convincing the German public that Hess had flown the coop. A perfect crime and coverup, if ever there was one. There was never any danger that the fugitive Hess would reveal Nazi plans for the Russian invasion in July 1941 since he had no knowledge beyond what his masters had fed him.
I will be giving a free seminar starting in the spring on Rudolf Hess : the imposter story and the murder of the imposter which is not discussed in my novel. This is a fascinating subject: a detective story with a lot of mystery.
It won’t be long now before you can order the book on Amazon, Ingram, Indigo, Barnes and Noble, or any other online bookstore.