The historian thus aligns himself with the so-called "functionalist" interpretation, early proposed by Hans Mommsen, dean of German historiography on the Third Reich, according to which the Nazis acted opportunistically. In contrast, the "intentionalist" view attributes all events to Hitler's machinations. endless controversies The controversies over the following two episodes analyzed by Evans also continue to this day. Hess's journey to Scotland from Augsburg in a Messerschmitt heavy fighter retrofitted with extra fuel tanks is the first of these.
Hess failed to make out the scheduled landing strip and parachuted out; the Royal Air Force planes that had been alerted by radar to intercept him had not been able to locate him. Hess made the south africa phone number list decision to fly on his own, Evans says. His purpose was to formulate a peace proposal to the British. He offered to keep the empire in exchange for not interfering in Nazi control over Europe. The offer was immediately scrapped. There was no compromising wing in the British government as Hess imagined, and a German invasion was no longer feared to justify a rapprochement in order to prevent it.
For his part, Hitler had no impact on the operation and when he heard the news he reacted with a typical outburst of anger. Hess, on the other hand, never invoked orders from Hitler, who was focused on what would be the largest land invasion in history: the attack on the USSR launched on June 22, 1941. Paranoid speculation about Hess's flight ran rampant from the start. In fact, the biggest propagation powerhouse of a supposed agreement between Germany and Great Britain was the Kremlin. No doubt Hitler had sent Hess, or perhaps it was a set up by British secret services to explore a German response and Hess was just a bishop on a major board.