The flight of Rudolf Hess, the deputy leader of the Nazi Party, to Scotland in May 1941 remains one of the great unresolved mysteries of the Second World War. Did he come on Hitler's commission--or, as he always maintained, without the Führer's knowledge? Was the man who parachuted out of the Messerschmitt Bf 100 really Hess...or a double? What was his purpose, why was he incarcerated for life in Berlin's Spandau Prison, and was he (as his son alleged) murdered to prevent his revealing an explosive secret? The biographer of Himmler and Dönitz navigates these still swirling controversies with confidence, profiling the man, the milieu, and the uppermost echelons of the Nazi hierarchy. The conclusion: Hess was indeed sacrificed...but he was a most willing victim. The flight of Rudolf Hess, the deputy leader of the Nazi Party, to Scotland in May 1941 remains one of the great unresolved mysteries of the Second World War. Did he come on Hitler's commission--or, as he always maintained, without the Führer's knowledge? Was the man who parachuted out of the Messerschmitt Bf 100 really Hess...or a double? What was his purpose, why was he incarcerated for life in Berlin's Spandau Prison, and was he (as his son alleged) murdered to prevent his revealing an explosive secret? The biographer of Himmler and Dönitz navigates these still swirling controversies with confidence, profiling the man, the milieu, and the uppermost echelons of the Nazi hierarchy. The conclusion: Hess was indeed sacrificed...but he was a most willing victim.