Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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34 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Carefully researched history becomes a gripping whodunnit., 13 Nov 2001
By A Customer
This carefully researched academic tome doubles as a compelling whodunnit. It is the latest and best of a series of works investigating five mysteries: why did Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess, make a clandestine flight to Scotland in 1941? How did King George VI's brother, the Duke of York, meet with a fatal air accident? Was the real Hess murdered on Churchill's orders? If so, who was the double who stood trial at Nuremburg and became the lone prisoner at Spandau until his death in 1987? Did the "doppelganger" Hess really die of natural causes?
The authors suggest that Hess's flight was far from the spur-of-the-moment decision of a deranged man and that Hess brought a blueprint for peace approved by Hitler and the highest figures in the British Establishment but not Prime Minister Churchill who scuppered any chance of an armistice. They link the mysterious death of the King's brother to the demise of the real Hess. But then who was the "Hess" sentenced to life imprisonment for War Crimes when the British wanted him hanged? Who was the 93 year old who died in Spandau Castle? Was this sad old relic really killed by British agents and why? Would it really embarrass Britain's favourite granny, the Queen Mother, to be associated with a movement for peace? Did the Israelis really connive at bumping off an ancient prisoner, lest he become a focus of Hitler worship?
After reading this fascinating book, as an Englishman, I shall never be able to view Winston Churchill, the Royal Family , or my country's government in the same light again.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fresh look at world war two, 4 April 2007
This book is a fascinating look at the flight of Rudolf hess in 1941 and also takes a fresh look at world war two.
The book argues that much of the british establishment wanted to make peace with germany and that hess was lured to britain by a group of establishment figures hoping to negotiate some kind of treaty.
When hess arrived in britain however he was instead arrested and kept as a prisoner.
Picknett and Prince argue that the real hess died during world war two, and that a hess double was tried at nuremburg and served a life sentence at spadau, before possibly being murdered in 1987.
Its eye opening to see how many right wing establishment figures favoured a peace with hitler.
This book is very well researched and well written and has many interesting theories, even if you don't entirely buy picknett and Pirnce's conspiracy theories, its still an interesting read.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
...he would have proved most royal, 28 Feb 2007
There are not many German books about Rudolf Hess. By contrast, the book list presented in Double Standards" gives us a dozen British or US titles dealing specifically with the man and many more in which Hess plays a part. Is this due only to the well-known British love of mystery stories, or are there other reasons for the seemingly constant preoccupation with this particular subject?
In 1939, Britain and France were major imperial powers, the USA were still digging their way out of a home-made depression, Germany was trying to reconsolidate herself at the expense of some of her neighbours, and the Soviet Union loomed in the background. A mere six years later, the erstwhile empires were gone or nearly so, Germany was devastated materially, politically, and spiritually, but the Soviet Union had advanced its sway some 500 miles to the west, and for all intents and purposes the USA occupied the rest of Europe.
This was not at all the situation Britain had envisioned when she declared war on Germany after the German invasion of Poland, but, if we are to believe the authors of this book, it corresponded very closely to a picture which Rudolf Hess, after his daring and tragically unsuccessful flight to Scotland, repeatedly outlined to his captors as a possibility to be avoided at all costs. Even if the details of the proposals Hess had taken along on his flight are still locked away or lost forever, this outline matches perfectly the German assessment of the political situation of the day. Churchill, by himself, without even consulting his cabinet, refused to accept such arguments and brushed aside whatever Hess had proposed.
The question which is looming large behind the 500 pages of this well-researched book (and also behind the many others written on this subject) is why Churchill was so adamant in his negative attitude, whether he was aware of the possibly horrible consequences of his position, and to what extent he condoned the scenario that he was conjuring up. These are questions of political morality and in a way it would seem that the incessant preoccupation of British authors with our subject reflects the unease they are feeling with respect to major and in the end catastrophic decisions taken in their name and over their heads by less than a handful of people in Whitehall.
The authors of Double Standards" devote several pages to a discussion of the tragedies on all sides that could have been avoided if Hess` mission had been a success. With a marvellously tongue-in-cheek attitude they also consider, side by side, the kind of Europe that, in 1941, would have resulted from a reasonable peace, and the political structure we see emerging today in the same geographical area, finding little to choose between the two.
Such, then, is the backdrop against which the scenes of this tragedy are played out. Fate has it that once the two mighty monarchies confront each other across the perilous narrow ocean, there ensues an inexorable march to doom despite the courageous efforts of many noble souls on either side; there is a climax at which point the scales could have been tipped either way, there is the terrible act where the battle`s lost and won, and there is the pitiful finale, with murders most foul and ghosts that will not go away.
In their description of Rudolf Hess, the four authors, like so many captains, bear him to centre stage and seem to say that, had he been put on, he would have proved most royal. With this regard it matters but little whether his final resting place is at Wunsiedel, next to his parents, or in Scottish soil, next to the poor fellows who may have crashed with him on Eagles Rock.
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