A MONUMENT to the Nazi Rudolf Hess, erected on farmland near

Eaglesham, was destroyed yesterday by anti-fascists as the local

district council was discussing steps to have it legally removed.

Hours after it was disclosed that the marble and slate monument had

been built in a field near Floors Farm, at the spot where Hitler's

luckless deputy landed by parachute in 1941, someone came along and

wrecked it.

Anti-Nazi League stickers were left at the scene and police are now

investigating the incident.

The legend on the stone read: ''This stone marks the spot where brave,

heroic Rudolf Hess landed by parachute on the night of 10th May 1941

seeking to end the war between Britain and Germany.''

The tribute incensed and offended the local community, many of whom

are Jewish. The suspicion was that it had been commissioned by an

elderly Nazi sympathiser from England. The fear was that, if allowed to

remain in place, it would have become a focal point for European

neo-fascist groups.

Senior officials from Eastwood District Council, as embarrassed and

angry as anyone else, were taking steps to have the stone removed

because it had not been granted planning permission. However, events

overtook them.

Farmer Craig Baird, on whose land at Floors Farm the memorial stood,

was apparently unaware of the implications when an amiable, elderly,

Yorkshireman approached him earlier this year to arrange for the stone

to be erected.

Mr Baird, 55, said: ''This man approached me and asked if I had any

objection to him marking the site where Hess landed.''

The farmer made no objection even though he was made aware of the

inscription. ''With hindsight, it should have been worded differently,''

he admitted.

Mr Baird's brother, Basil, who runs a neighbouring farm and is a

Conservative councillor on Eastwood district, said: ''Craig didn't

appreciate what was involved. It would now appear that there were some

sinister undertones which he was certainly not aware of.''

Councillor Baird knew nothing about the memorial, apparently erected

in May, until told about it yesterday. ''It is certainly insensitive and

it didn't have planning approval,'' he said.

As representatives of Eastwood's influential Jewish community

expressed their

disgust yesterday, the council's executives immediately took the first

-- and as it turned out academic steps -- to ensure the removal of the

stone.

Speaking before the unofficial demolition job, chief executive Michael

Henry said: ''Our director of planning has now written to the landowner

pointing out that since there is no planning permission he should

arrange to have it removed. I think we can say that, as far as the

sentiments of the memorial are concerned, they are not those which this

council would have any sympathy for.''

Scottish Office Minister Allan Stewart, in whose constituency the

monument stood, said: ''I am in no doubt that the people of Eastwood

found the wording and the monument itself very offensive.''

Mr Harry Diamond, a leading member of the Jewish community in Glasgow,

commented: ''If this is indeed a memorial to a man who was

second-in-command to the world's most obscene regime, one can only feel

disgust and repugnance. It is also an appalling insult to every British

soldier who served in the Second World War and to the families of those

who died to preserve our freedom.''

Mr Harvey Livingston, president of the Glasgow Jewish Representative

Council, said his community would be ''horrified and disgusted'' to

learn that any leader of the German Nazi regime could have been

respected in this way.

Meanwhile, the identity of the elderly Yorkshireman who erected the

monument remains a mystery. Could it have been Mr Colin Jordan, the

former British fascist leader, now 70 and living in retirement near

Harrogate?

''No. It wasn't me,'' he said yesterday. ''But I knew about the

project and I know who it was. I am not prepared to disclose his

identity.

''So far as I know, he came up with this idea himself and he mentioned

it to a number of people including myself and asked for our opinion. We

were entirely in favour of it. I always opposed and protested at the

imprisonment of Rudolf Hess and therefore the idea of a memorial like

this is something with which I am entirely sympathetic.''

Pressed to disclose the identity of the man, he added: ''Well, I can

say that he lives in England but he is not a Yorkshireman. I think, in

fact, he may claim to be Scottish.''

Mr Jordan had planned an ealy visit to the monument.

* Rudolf Hess parachuted into Scotland after his dramatic flight from

Germany in 1941. He claimed to be carrying details of peace proposals.

He was immediately arrested and spent the rest of the war in detention.

He was later imprisoned at Spandau Prison, Berlin, where he died in

1987.