Photo from today's ride: bizarre tribute to Rudolph Hess

Captain Fagor

I knew I lived somewhere near where Rudolph Hess was supposed to have crashed his plane during WWII. Today, twenty years and one day after he died in Spandau prison, I stumbled upon a bizarre road-side memorial to his death at what must be the crash site. I took a few photographs with my mobile phone.

Photo 1
Photo 2

I was wondering why people would do such a thing - it just seemed strange. I then did a bit of background reading at wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolph_Hess
It seems there's a lot of theories about what Hess's intentions were, and a lot of speculation about what has happened since. The slightly disturbing thing is that the roadside card says "murdered 1987" which makes me thing that neo nazis have erected this little shrine.

Can anyone shed some more light on this odd scene? :?:

Anonymous

All I can add that is not in the Wiki article is that he was trying to get to the Duke of Hamilton's hunting lodge at Dungavel House ( subsequently a prison and now a immigration detention centre).

arranandy

Is that up near Strathaven? There used to be a small cairn in the field where Hess's plane crash landed. However the council removed it in case it became a shrine to neo-Nazi sympathisers

Captain Fagor

BJB - I was wondering about the whereabouts of the Hamiltons' hunting lodge, as Eaglesham isn't exactly hunting terrain. And by coincidence, I also cycled past Dungavel yesterday - it's on the same 60 mile route that I do!

arranandy - Eaglesham is near-ish to Strathaven: about ten miles to the north. There's actually a small airfield in Strathaven. If that was there during WWII, then perhaps that's where Mr H was planning on landing. It's certainly quite near (~5 miles) to Dungavel.

Setting asside all the details, I thought this thread would have generated a bit more interest. It's not exactly an everyday occurrence is it?

BigWomble

There was a joke going round at the time. It went like this.

"What is the deputy Reichsfuhrer doing in this country? - I don't know, your Hess is is good as mine."

:oops:

His view appears to have been shared by many of his countrymen. During the battle for France in 1944, an SS officer surrendered, and then volunteered to join the US army so that they could fight the Soviet Union together. He was most surprised to have his request turned down.

shockedsoshocked

A bit off topic, but I was once talking about Hess with my dad. Halfway through my mum walks in and goes "Hess? Wasn't he in Spandau?" to which my dad replied "Yeh, he was the bassist!"

You had to be there...

Tourist Tony

How very odd. I tried to read thewhole of that "poem" but couldn't see it all. I note it seems to say "March on in Action". I would guess that to be a neoNazi group.

johny c

capt Fagor,

I was brought up in eaglesham, the plane crashed near floors road. My p6&7 teacher, Elsie lyon, had a bit of the wreckage. I read a couple of books by Hugh Thomas where he expresses his belief that the Hess detained at floors farm (who later attempted suicide in custody in the Isle of Man, before end of ww2) was not the real one, but an imposter. He also wrote about his suspicions surrounding Hess suicide:

http://www.trashfiction.co.uk/hess.html