Home / Series / Tuesday Documentary / Aired Order / Season 1970 / Episode 36

The Strange Case Of Rudolf Hess

An investigation into the unsolved mystery of a man's mind ... a strange secret man who was the central figure in one of the most extraordinary episodes of the Second World War. Narrated by JOHN STOCKBRIDGE Written by CORRELLI BARNETT Rudolf Hess landed by parachute in wartime Scotland on Saturday night, 10 May 1941. He was then Deputy Fuehrer of Nazi Germany at the height of its power; today he is the last-Nazi leader left in prison at Spandau, West Berlin. The questions posed by his mysterious flight and his subsequent behaviour remain unanswered, locked in Hess's mind. His curious actions were attributed to mental unsoundness. But was he really unsound? Or were his symptoms and loss of memory merely a sustained and successful hoax-as he himself afterwards maintained? In a part of this programme VICTOR BEAUMONT plays Hess in a special reconstruction of his wartime captivity in Britain. This sequence is based entirely on Army medical records and Hess's 'own writings. His unusual story is also told with archive film and eyewitness accounts from Captain Graham Donald Max McAuslane Dr J. Gisbon Graham Dr Henry V. Dicks Airey Neave, MP Albert Speer Frau Hildegarde Fath Frau Use Hess Produced by HARRY HASTINGS

English
  • Originally Aired December 8, 1970
  • Runtime 55 minutes
  • Network BBC Two
  • Created August 11, 2017 by
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  • Modified August 11, 2017 by
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