Rudolf Hess
Rudolf Hess (1894-1987) was deputy leader of the German Nazi Party and a key figure in the fascist regime of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) until his bizarre decision in 1941 to fly to Scotland. Hess believed he could persuade Britain to withdraw from the Second World War (1939-45), which would allow Germany to concentrate on fighting the USSR.
Hess's diplomatic overtures were dismissed as nonsense by both the British government and Hitler. Hess had acted without Hitler's blessing, and he was shunned as a lunatic. Hess remained a prisoner, first in Britain and then, after he was found guilty at the Nuremberg Trials, in Germany. He committed suicide at the age of 93, although his physical frailty led to some speculation as to just how he had managed to hang himself in the garden of Spandau prison.
Early Life
Rudolf Richard Hess was born in Alexandria, Egypt, on 26 April 1894. Rudolf's father owned a successful export company in the port city, but he insisted his son study in Germany from the age of 14. Rudolf then worked in his father's business until the outbreak of the First World War (1914-18) when he enlisted as a volunteer. Hess joined the same regiment in the Bavarian army that Adolf Hitler served in, the 1st Bavarian Infantry Regiment. He won his commission, the rank of lieutenant, but after being twice wounded and winning the Iron Cross Second Class medal, he decided to join the German Air Force, although the war ended just a few months later.
Hess moved to Munich, where he studied history, economics, and politics at the city's university. Although he never completed his degree, Hess did come under the spell of the influential professor of geopolitics, Karl Haushofer. In post-war Germany, the politics of the Weimar Republic, as it was then called, was volatile. Hess blamed the socialist regime for Germany's economic woes, and he sought a radical change to German politics. Hess "became a member of the Freikorps Epp and participated in the liberation of Munich from communist revolutionaries in the spring of 1919" (Gellately, 62). Hess then joined the fascist National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP or Nazi Party for short), which was founded in 1920 as the German Workers' Party. Hess joined the party in the summer of 1920.
Hitler & Hess, 1924
Imperial War Museums (CC BY-NC-SA)
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