Nazi leader planned to build Scottish retreat

RUDOLF Hess, whose flight to Scotland in 1941 became one of the most bizarre incidents of the Second World War, planned to build a baronial home in Scotland in the event of Germany's victory.

The deputy Fuhrer, who parachuted into Renfrewshire in May 1941 in a bid to negotiate Britain's surrender with the Duke of Hamilton, drew up plans for the house, which was to have a dining room capable of seating 170 people, while he was held captive at "Camp Z", a country house outside London in 1941.

Hess's plans for his Scottish retreat are revealed in a new book, Camp Z: The Secret Life Of Rudolf Hess, by Stephen McGinty, which details the year the Nazi leader spent at Mytchett Place, a country house near Aldershot, as MI6 tried to uncover his secrets.

He discussed his plans with Lieutenant William Malone, a member of the Scots Guards who were responsible for guarding him during the summer of 1941. As well as planning a rural retreat in Scotland, Hess, who became increasingly paranoid and mentally ill, requested that he be moved from Mytchett Place in England back to Scotland so that he could go cycling.

Lieutenant Colonel Malcolm Scott, the commandant, noted in the diary for Camp Z: "He asks that he may be transferred to Scotland where he could roam over the moors and indulge in his favourite pastime of cycling."

Hess also requested a gun so that he could protect himself, only to be told by his MI6 handler, Major Frank Foley, that as there was a war on "the British government was very short of guns at present".

Hess was almost sent back to Scotland, but not in the manner he might have hoped for. Colonel John Rawlings Rees, the psychiatrist in charge of his care, visited Dumfries Asylum in Galloway in 1942 to check its suitability as a new home for the deputy Fuhrer.

However, there were concerns that if Hess was transferred to an asylum he would be eligible for repatriation under the terms of the Geneva Convention, so instead he was later transferred to Maindiff Court, a hospital in Wales where he remained until his transfer back to Germany after the end of the war. He was sentenced to life imprisonment at the Nuremberg trials and died in Spandau Prison in 1987, aged 93.