Hess Flight

On May 10, 1941, Rudolph Hess, the third-ranking Nazi, parachuted into Scotland on a personal peace mission, undertaken without Hitler's knowledge. He believed that there were many Britons who would find common cause with Germany in the war against the Soviet Union then being planned by Hitler. Hess hoped to convince the British to replace Churchill as prime minister, cease hostilities against Germany, and join in an anticommunist crusade against the Soviet Union. Hess's mission failed. He was imprisoned by the British and denounced as "insane" by Hitler. After the war he was convicted as a war criminal for his role in the rise of the Nazi government.