Original sentence: German historian Werner Maser states that Otto Grotewohl told him of the meeting on the understanding that it would not be mentioned until after Grotewohl’s death.Grotewohl found it hard to understand why Hess rejected the offer to help rebuild Germany as a free man.He has not explained why.Hess had been taken from Spandau to meet the GDR leaders when the USSR assumed its monthly jurisdiction over the prison fortress.Hess rejected the offer, although he “welcomed… the efforts of the GDR and the Soviet Union to preserve German patriotism” But he regarded the acceptance of such an offer as a betrayal of Hitler’s memory.If Hess would state that the GDR policy was the same as the “socialism” to which he had always adhered, he would be immediately released from Spandau.In 1952, the then deputy minister-president of the German Democratic Republic Lothar Bolz, the minister of trade and supplies, Karl Hamann, and Otto Grotewohl met with Hess, to discuss whether he would be willing to play a leading role in a reunified Germany with a neutral foreign policy.In the longer term, Hess would play a part in the leadership of a reunited Germany.Professor Maser records that Stalin wished “to temper justice with mercy in the Germany matter and to grant Hess a prominent position within the framework of reconstruction and the efforts towards the reunification of Germany.The alleged meeting took place precisely when the USSR called for a plebiscite on the unification and neutrality of Germany, which reflected a policy that was likewise taken up by war veterans and former NSDAP members led by Major General Otto Ernst Remer in the Federal Republic of Germany.Wolf Rüdiger Hess remained skeptical as to the reality of the meeting and the offer.Wolf Rüdiger Hess, Hess's son, stated that in March 1952 “Stalin proposed a peace treaty and free elections for a neutral and unified Germany to prevent the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) from joining the West’s defense organization, which he considered a threat to Soviet security.” It was proposed that Hess would serve as “a vehicle for the introduction of the New Policy,” according to Maser