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Rudolf Hess (1894-1987)

The International Military Tribunal trials at Nuremberg [Nuernberg] in 1946 charged the defendants with four crimes. Count One charged all of the defendants with being "leaders, organizers, instigators, or accomplices in the formation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit, or which involved the commission of, Crimes against Peace, War Crimes, and Crimes against Humanity." Count Two charged the defendants with crimes against peace by their participation "in the planning, preparation, initiation, and waging of wars of aggression." Count Three charged the defendants with war crimes. Count Four charged the defendants with crimes against humanity. Rudolf Hess was indicted uncler all four counts.

Rudolf Hess [305,000 instances] [not Rudolph, 39,500 instances] Hess was wounded twice while serving in the German Army during the Great War, then later became an airplane pilot. Hess joined the Nazi Party in 1920, the sixteenth member, and participated in the Munich Putsch on November 9, 1923. He was imprisoned with Hitler in the Landsberg fortress in 1924 and became Hitler's closest personal confidant, a relationship which lasted until Hess' flight to the British Isles. On April 21, 1933, he was appointed Deputy to the Fuehrer, and on December 1, 1933, was made Reichs Minister without Portfolio. He was appointed member of the Secret Cabinet Council on February 4, 1938, and a member of the Mimisterial Council for the Defense of the Reich on August 30, 1939. In September 1939, Hess mas officially announced by Hitler as successor designate to the Fnehrer after Goering. On May 10, 1941, he flew from Germany to Scotland.

As Deputy to the Fuehrer, Hess was the top man in the Nazi Party with responsibility for handling all party matters, and authority to make decisions in Hitler's name on all questions of party leadership. As Reichs Minister without Portfolio he had the authority to approve all legislation suggested by the different Reichs ministers before it could be enacted as law. In these positions Hess was an active supporter of preparations for war. His signature appears on the law of 16 March 1935, establishing compulsory military service. Throughout the years he supported Hitler's policy of vigorous rearmament in many speeches. He told the people that they must sacrifice for armaments, repeating the phrase, "Guns instead of butter." It is true that between 1933 and 1937 Hess made speeches in which he expressed a desire for peace and advocated international economic cooperation. But nothing which they contained can alter the fact that of all the defendants none knew better than Hess how determined Hitler was to realize his ambitions, how fanatical and violent a man he mas, and how little likely he was to refrain from resort to force, if this was the only may in which he could achieve his aims.

Hess was an informed and milling participant in German aggression against Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. He was in touch with the illegal Nazi Party in Austria throughout the entire period between the murder of Dollfuss and the Anschluss, and gave instructions to it during that period. Hess was in Vienna on March 12, 1938, when the German troops moved in; and on March 13, 1938, he signed the law for the union of Austria within the German Reich. A law of June 10, 1939, provided for his participation in the administration of Austria. On July 24, 1938, he made a speech in commemoration of the susuccessful putsch by Austrian Nationa1 Socialists which had been attempted four years before, praising the steps leading upto Anschluss and defending the occupation of Austria by Germany.

In the summer of 1938 Hess was in active touch with Henlein, chief of the Sudeten German Party in Czechoslovakia. On September 27, 1935, at the time of the Munich crisis, he arranged with Keitel to carry out the instructions of Hitler to make the machinery of the Nazi Party available for a secret mobilization. On April 14, 1939, Hess signed a decree setting up the government of the Sudetenland as an integral part of the Reich; and an ordinance of June 10,1939, provided for his in the administration of the Sudetenland. On November 7, 1935, Hess absorbed Henlein's Sudeten German Party into the Nazi Party, and made a speech in which he emphasized that Hitler had been prepared to resort to war if this had been necessary to acquire the Sudetenland.

On August 27, 1939, when the attack on Poland had been temporarily postponed in an attempt to induce Great Britain to abandon its guarantee to Poland, Hess publicly praised Hitler's "magnanimous offer" to Poland, and attacked Poland for agitating for war and England for being responsible for Poland's attitude. After the invasion of Poland Hess signed decrees incorporating Danzig and certain Polish territories into the Reich, and setting up the General Government (Poland).

These specific steps which this defendant took in support of Hitler's plans for aggressive action do not indicate the full extent of his responsibility. Until his flight to England, Hess was Hitler's closest personal confidant. Their relationship was such that Hess must have been informed of Hitler's aggressive plans when they came into existence. And he took action to carry out these plans whenever action was necessary.

There is evidence showing the participation of the party chancellery, under Hess, in the distribution of orders connected with the commission of war crimes; that Hess may have had knowledge of, even if he did not participate in, the crimes that were being committed in the east, and of proposed laws discriminating against Jews and Poles ; and that he signed decrees forcing certain groups of Poles to accept German citizenship. The Tribunal, however, did not find that the evidence sufficiently connected Hess with these crimes to sustain a finding of guilt.

Hess flew to England on May 10, 1941, and parachuted onto the estate owned by Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, 14th Duke of Hamilton, styled as Marquess of Douglas and Clydesdale between 1904 and 1940. He succeeded to the title of 14th Marquess of Clydesdale [S., 1643] on 16 March 1940, along with a long string of other titles upon the death of his father, Alfred Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, 13th Duke of Hamilton. The first account from London said that the Duke had met Hess at the 1936 Olympic Games in Germany, that Hess had planned to approach him because before the war he was a member of the Anglo-German Fellowship. The Duke's younger brother, also a flier, had worked in Nazi labor camps, married the strength-through-joy Hon. Prunella Stack, physical culturist and Nazi favorite. After the Duke had met Hess and talked to him, an official announcement stated that Hess had written to him three months before, denouncing the war as "lunatic" This letter the Duke was supposed to have turned over to the authorities. A few days later, however, the Duke spoke for himself, insisted he had never met Hess before in his life.

One month after World War II broke out, the Duke wrote the London Times: "We will not grudge Germany Lebensraum provided that Lebensraum is not made on the grave of other nations. ... I look forward to the day when a trusted Germany comes into her own. . . ."

After Hess flew to Scotland, Albrecht Haushofer, his foreign policy adviser, was asked to write a report for Adolf Hitler about his peace talks with the British (12th May, 1941). Haushofer wrote that ".. when the Deputy of the Fuehrer, Reich Minister Hess, asked me in the autumn of iqq.o about possibilities of gaining access to possibly reasonable Englishmen, I suggested two concrete possibilities for establishing contacts. I wrote a letter to the Duke of Hamilton at the end of September 1940 and its despatch to Lisbon was arranged by the Deputy Fuehrer. I did not learn whether the letter reached the addressee."

With him Hess carried certain peace proposals which he alleged Hitler was prepared to accept. He blamed England and France for the war, but proposed a peace between Germany and Britain so that jointly they could wage war against the Soviet Union. It is significant to note that this flight took place only 10 days after the date on which Hitler had fixed June 22, 1941, as the time for attacking the Soviet Union. In conversations carried on after his arrival in England, Hess whole-heartedly supported all Germany's aggressive actions up to that time, and attempted to justify Germany's action in connection with Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

The flight of Hess raised the question of whether British intelligence or members of the aristocracy were trying to broker a secret peace deal with the Nazis. But MI5 files declassified in 2004 shed more light on Hess's mysterious flight to Scotland, and finally prove the conspiracy theories to be unfounded. MI5 uncovered a secret Polish plot to assassinate Rudolf Hess by British-based Polish soldiers feared Hess's arrival showed their country was being sold down the river.

Hitler's dispatch of Rudolf Hess - or Hess's dispatch of Hess - to parlay with anamiable Duke of no influence whatsoever, was only the most gross sign of a grotesque view of British democracy. It was characteristic of the dictators of the 20th century that they were profoundly ignorant of the culture, the character, the people of the nations they tooke to be their enemies. Hess displayed signs of mental instability to his British captors, who concluded he was half mad and represented only himself. Churchill, infuriated by his statements, ordered Hess to be imprisoned for the duration and treated like any high ranking POW. Hess was declared insane by Hitler, and effectively disowned by the Nazis. Hess never changed his story. He said he was on a solo mission to end the war between Britain and Germany. Gauleiter Ernst Bohle, the Hess confident and high-ranking official who had helped Hess to translate some papers into English, remained convinced until his death that all this was done with Hitler's knowledge and approval.

On 30 August 1945 Rudolf Hess stated that he had been faking loss of memory for "tactical reasons" The No. 3 Nazi made the statement before the International War Crimes Tribunal which was trying him and 19 other top Nazis. "I desire to be tried with my comrades," Hess said. "Now my memory is again at my disposal. The amnesia was simulated for tactical reasons. Though my memory is somewhat impaired, it does not interfere with the questioning of witnesses and following proceedings." In periods of lucidity he displayed loyalty to Hitler, ending with his final speech - "It was granted me for many years to live and work under the greatest son whom my nation has brought forth in the thousand years of its history. Even if I could I would not expunge this period from my existence. I regret nothing. If I were standing once more at the beginning I should act once again as I did then, even if I knew that at the end I should be burnt at the stakeu"

The Tribunal found, after a full medical examination of and report on the condition of this defendant, that he should be tried, without any postponement of his case. Since that time further motions were made that he should again be examined. These the Tribunal denied, after having had a report Prom the prison psychologist. That Hess acted in an abnormal manner, suffered from loss of memory, and had mentally deteriorated during this trial, may be true. But there was nothing to show that he didi not realize the nature of the charges against him, or is incapable of defending himself. He was ably represented at the trial by counsel, appointed for that purpcse by the Tribunal. There was no suggestion that Hess mas not completely sane when the acts charged against him were committed.

The Tribunal found the defendant Hess guilty on counts one and two; and not guilty on counts three and four. Built to hold 600 criminals, Spandau by that stage was home to just one man: Rudolph Hess. His last two remaining companions, Albert Speer and Baldur von Schirach, had been released in 1966, when Hess was already 72-years-old. On 17 August 1987 Rudolf Hess, the last member of Adolf Hitler's inner circle, died at a Berlin hospital near Spandau Prison at age 93, having apparently committed suicide, having spent 46 years in a Spandau prison. In Germany, rallies and marches by neo-Nazis and rightwing radicals commemorating the death of Nazi official Rudolf Hess are banned routinely.