Except from Eyes Only: The Secret Wartime Files of M15," by "Z" Binford & Mort, Edinborough, 1950: Chapter 5, "The Great Gamble."
Adolf Hitler had genuine courage in some respects, but in others he was a most fearful neurotic.
Like most world leaders of that era, he had a double; this carefully-groomed doppleganger was assigned to read prepared speeches before unimportant audiences, to make public appearances in places too tedious or distant for the Fuehrer to be bothered with, and - in Hitler's case, at least - to be exposed to potentially dangerous situations in which the Great Leader's presence was deemed appropriate.
Toward the end of the war, as Hitler sank deeper into drug addiction and paranoia, this double was called upon with ever greater frequency; until at the end, it was said the double could be detected simply because he looked so
much more sane and healthy than the genuine article.
At the same time, Hitler suffered from another debilitating mental weakness; namely, he was afraid of flying. In any case in which the Fuehrer was shown aloft in an airplane, one could be sure this was the double.
Of course, as Germany's conquests expanded, this failing became more of an inconvenience. Hitler's presence might be expected, nay demanded, at places too distant to be speedily reached by train or automobile. For this reason, Hitler availed himself of a very large, multi-engined airplane, the cavernous interior of which was fitted out as a replica of his working office, complete with curtained windows of frosted glass with shaded incandescents behind them to simulate daylight. Ordinary doors communicated with a loo, kitchen and other conveniences, and the whole was carefully insulated to exclude the noise of the engines.
It is always humiliating to admit an error, even more so an error accompanied by arrogance. It seems I may be guilty of a certain supercilious attitude toward the late Larry R. Szelznik which may not have been justified. In extenuation, I must say that I was not in possession of all the information at the time I wrote the previous vignette of Lt. Szelznik's war stories.
A correspondent, A. P. Taschenbrot, has furnished me with excerpts from an uncommon little book, "Eyes Only: The Secret Wartime Files of M15," By "Z", published by Binfords & Mort, Edinborough, 1950. To place this source in proper context, it should be noted that on its publication it was immediately denounced by British intelligence agencies as "A preposterous fraud - silly fabrication, a tissue of penny-dreadful melodrama and sheer fantasy."
If this were indeed the case, it does seem odd that the book was immediately suppressed under the Official Secrets Act, and all copies seized and apparently destroyed - although one copy, at least, made it to the States in the luggage of an American tourist.
"Z" was eventually identified as a low-level decoder who had indeed worked for M15 during the war, although the authorities insisted he had never had access to any secrets of the sort he claimed to reveal in his book, in fact he had never had clearance to know anything that might prove in any way injurious to the nation. That being the case, it might have seemed silly to imprison him, and he was apparently allowed to emigrate to South Africa.
As for the unfortunate publisher, Binford & Mort, apparently "Eyes Only" was their first and last title, and the company vanishes from Edinborough's business directory after 1950. WW.