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.
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