On the 70th anniversary of Hess’s flight to Britain this past May big questions remain about the message he was conveying to the British government. Much of the flap is about a document in the Soviet Archives. It concerns a statement by Pintsch, one of Hitler’s aides. He was arrested and sent to the Eastern Front. The Soviets interrogated him. Pintsch confessed that Hitler knew about Hess’s flight and approved of it. This seems to be backed up by the memoirs of Hitler’s chief valet, Heinz Linge. Linge insists that Hitler directed Hess to go to Britain. But when the mission was unsuccessful, he disavowed all knowledge of it.
The biggest shocking fact: the British archives about this subject are still closed to the public. Why? I think that they don’t want anyone who remembered World War II to be around when the archives are made public. They fear what the reaction might be when people realize that Hitler made a serious peace overture to the British. People might then regret the loss of life in battles after Hess’s mission.