Rudolf Hess

After hearing the Nazi Party leader Hitler speak for the first time in 1920 at a Munich rally, Hess became completely devoted to him. They held a shared belief in the stab-in-the-back myth, the notion that Germany's loss in World War I was caused by a conspiracy of Jews and Bolsheviks rather than a military defeat. Hess joined the Nazi Party on 1 July as member number 16. As the party continued to grow, holding rallies and meetings in ever larger beer halls in Munich, he focused his attention on fundraising and organisational activities. On 4 November 1921, he was injured while protecting Hitler when a bomb planted by a Marxist group exploded at the Hofbräuhaus during a party event. Hess joined the Sturmabteilung (SA) by 1922 and helped organise and recruit its early membership.

In what is now known as the Beer hall putsch, Hitler and several thousand supporters attempted to march to the Ministry of War in the city centre. Gunfire broke out between the Nazis and the police; sixteen marchers and four police officers were killed. Hitler was arrested on 11 November.

Hess was arrested and sentenced to 18 months in prison for his role in the attempted coup. Hitler was sentenced to five years imprisonment, and the Nazi Party and SA were both outlawed.

Both men were incarcerated in Landsberg Prison, where Hitler soon began work on his memoir, Mein Kampf ("My Struggle"), which he dictated to fellow prisoners Hess and Emil Maurice. Edited by publisher Max Amann, Hess and others, the work was published in two parts in 1925 and 1926. It was later released in a single volume, which became a best-seller after 1930. This book, with its message of violent antisemitism, became the foundation of the political platform of the Nazi Party.

Hitler was released on parole on 20 December 1924 and Hess ten days later. The ban on the Nazi Party and SA was lifted in February 1925, and the party grew to 100,000 members in 1928 and 150,000 in 1929. Support increased steadily up until the seizure of power in 1933.

Hitler named Hess his private secretary in April 1925 at a salary of 500 Reichsmarks per month, and named him as personal adjutant on 20 July 1929. Hess accompanied Hitler to speaking engagements around the country and became his friend and confidante. Hess was one of the few people who could meet with Hitler at any time without an appointment. His influence in the Party continued to grow. On 15 December 1932 Hess was named head of the Party Liaison Staff and Chairman of the Party Central Political Commission.

Retaining his interest in flying after the end of his active military career, Hess obtained his private pilot's licence on 4 April 1929. His instructor was World War I flying ace Theodor Croneiss. In 1930 Hess became the owner of a BFW M.23b monoplane sponsored by the party newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter. He acquired two more Messerschmitt aircraft in the early 1930s, logging many flying hours and becoming proficient in the operation of light single-engine aircraft.

On 30 August 1939, immediately prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, Hess was appointed by Hitler to the six-person Council of Ministers for Defense of the Reich which was set up to operate as a war cabinet. After the Invasion of Poland and the start of the war on 1 September 1939, Hitler made Hess second in line to succeed him, after Hermann Göring. Around the same time, Hitler appointed Hess's chief of staff, Martin Bormann, as his personal secretary, a post formerly held by Hess. On 8 October 1939, Hess co-signed the law that annexed the Free City of Danzig, the Polish Corridor, and the part of Upper Silesia lost in 1921 to Germany. On the same day, Hess and Heinrich Himmler ordered that a racial registry be established in these areas and stated that Poles and Jews living in these areas were not to be treated as equals of Germans. A separate legal code for Poles and Jews in the annexed areas was created, imposing draconian punishments. Hess argued that a separate legal code was necessary because "the Pole is less susceptible to the infliction of ordinary punishment". In another decree, Hess ordered that none of the buildings destroyed in Warsaw during the siege were to be rebuilt as a reminder to the Poles of their "war guilt".

Hess's antisemitism markedly increased after the war started, as he was convinced that the war had been caused by Jews. This became a major theme of his wartime speeches. In a speech given on 20 April 1940 to mark Hitler's 51st birthday, Hess accused "Jews and their fellow travellers" of Germany's capitulation in November 1918, which he called the most calamitous event in world history. In the same speech, Hess, referring to the Black Horror on the Rhine story, stated the defeat of 1918 was followed by an occupation of the Rhineland by "niggers", which he again blamed on the Jews. Hess concluded his speech by saying that with Hitler in charge, there was no possibility of the current war ending similarly. "How the Jewish hounds will howl when Adolf Hitler stands before them", he concluded.

Hess was obsessed with his health to the point of hypochondria, consulting many doctors and other practitioners for what he described to his captors in Britain as a long list of ailments involving the kidneys, colon, gall bladder, bowels and heart. Hess was a vegetarian, and he did not smoke or drink. He brought his own food to the Berghof, claiming it was biologically dynamic, but Hitler did not approve of this practice, so he discontinued taking meals with the Führer.

Hess was interested in music, enjoyed reading and loved to spend time hiking and climbing in the mountains with his wife, Ilse. He and his friend Albrecht Haushofer shared an interest in astrology, and Hess also was keen on clairvoyance and the occult. Hess continued to be interested in aviation. He won an air race in 1934, flying a BFW M.35 in a circuit around Zugspitze Mountain and returning to the airfield at Munich with a time of 29 minutes. He placed sixth of 29 participants in a similar race held the following year. With the outbreak of World War II, Hess asked Hitler to be allowed to join the Luftwaffe as a pilot, but Hitler forbade it, and ordered him to stop flying for the duration of the war. Hess convinced him to reduce the ban to one year

bfw.m.23b Messerschmitt 23

As the war progressed, Hitler's attention became focused on foreign affairs and the conduct of the war. Hess, who was not directly engaged in the war, became increasingly sidelined from the affairs of the nation and from Hitler's attention; Bormann had successfully supplanted Hess in many of his duties and had taken Hess's position at Hitler's side. Hess was concerned that Germany would face a war on two fronts as plans progressed for Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union scheduled to take place in 1941.

Hess decided to attempt to bring Britain to the negotiating table by travelling there himself to seek meetings with the British government

He began training on the Messerschmitt Bf 110, a two-seater twin-engine aircraft, in October 1940 under instructor Wilhelm Stör, the chief test pilot at Messerschmitt. He continued to practice, as well as log his many cross-country flights, and found a specific aircraft that handled well—a Bf 110E-1/N—which was from then on held in reserve for his personal use. He asked for a radio compass, modifications to the oxygen delivery system, and large long-range fuel tanks to be installed on this plane, and these requests were granted by March 1941.

Before his departure from Germany, Hess had given his adjutant, Karlheinz Pintsch, a letter addressed to Hitler that detailed his plans to initiate peace negotiations with the UK. Hess intended to approach the Duke of Hamilton at his home in Scotland, hoping that the duke might then be willing to advocate for and assist him negotiate peace with Germany on terms that would be acceptable to Hitler. Pintsch delivered the letter to Hitler at the Berghof around noon on 11 May. After reading the letter, Hitler let loose a cry heard throughout the entire Berghof and sent for a number of his inner circle, concerned that a putsch might be underway.

Hitler worried that his allies, Italy and Japan, would perceive Hess's act as an attempt by Hitler to secretly open peace negotiations with the British. Hitler contacted Mussolini specifically to reassure him otherwise. For this reason, Hitler ordered that the German press should characterise Hess as a madman who made the decision to fly to Scotland entirely on his own, without Hitler's knowledge or authority.

Hess Flys to Britain

Shortly before midnight on 10 May 1941, Hess parachuted out of his plane above at Floors Farm, by Waterfoot, south of Glasgow, where he was discovered still struggling with his parachute by local ploughman David McLean. Identifying himself as "Hauptmann Alfred Horn", Hess said he had an important message for the Duke of Hamilton. McLean helped Hess to his nearby cottage and contacted the local Home Guard unit, who escorted the captive to their headquarters in Busby, East Renfrewshire.

Hess was transferred briefly to the Tower of London and then to Mytchett Place in Surrey, a fortified mansion, designated "Camp Z", where he stayed for the next 13 months. Churchill issued orders that Hess was to be treated well, though he was not allowed to read newspapers or listen to the radio

While in Scotland, Hess claimed to have discovered a "secret force" controlling the minds of Churchill and other British leaders, filling them with an irrational hatred of Germany. Hess claimed that the force acted on Hitler's mind as well, causing him to make poor military decisions. He said that the Jews had psychic powers that allowed them to control the minds of others, including Himmler, and that the Holocaust was part of a Jewish plot to defame Germany.

In the early morning hours of 16 June 1942, Hess rushed his guards and attempted suicide by jumping over the railing of the staircase at Mytchett Place. He fell onto the stone floor below, fracturing the femur of his left leg. The injury required that the leg be kept in traction for 12 weeks, with a further six weeks bed rest before he was permitted to walk with crutches

Hess was moved to Maindiff Court Hospital on 26 June 1942, where he remained for the next three years. The facility was chosen for its added security and the need for fewer guards. Hess was allowed walks on the grounds and car trips into the surrounding countryside. He had access to newspapers and other reading materials; he wrote letters and journals. His mental health remained under the care of Dr. Rees. Hess continued to complain on and off of memory loss and made a second suicide attempt on 4 February 1945, when he stabbed himself with a bread knife. The wound was not serious, requiring two stitches. Despondent that Germany was losing the war, he took no food for the next week, only resuming eating when he was threatened with being force-fed

Germany surrendered unconditionally on 8 May 1945. Hess, facing charges as a war criminal, was ordered to appear before the International Military Tribunal and was transported to Nuremberg on 10 October 1945.

Hess was found guilty on two counts: crimes against peace (planning and preparing a war of aggression), and conspiracy with other German leaders to commit crimes. He was found not guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He was given a life sentence, one of seven Nazis to receive prison sentences at the trial. These seven were transported by aircraft to the Allied military prison at Spandau in Berlin on 18 July 1947.

Crazy days during Nuremburg

After spending 40 years in prison, Hess was found dead on 17 August 1987, aged 93, in a summer house that had been set up in the prison garden as a reading room; he had hanged himself using an extension cord strung over a window latch. A short note to his family was found in his pocket, thanking them for all that they had done. He was initially buried at a secret location to avoid media attention or demonstrations by Nazi sympathisers, but his body was re-interred in a family plot at Wunsiedel on 17 March 1988; his wife was buried beside him in 1995

Watch the Strange tale of Hess flight to Britain.