 Rudolf Hess Rudolf Hess should not be confused with the other prominent Nazi, Rudolf Höß (also spelled Höss or Hoess.)
Rudolf Hess (Rudolf Heß in German) (April 26, 1894–August 17, 1987) was a prominent figure in Nazi Germany and was Adolf Hitler's deputy as Nazi Party leader. He edited Hitler's book Mein Kampf and later became Hitler's private secretary, eventually rising to deputy party leader and third in leadership of Germany, after Hitler and Hermann Göring.
Hess had a privileged position as Hitler's deputy in the early years of the Nazi movement, but became increasingly marginalized in the 1930's as Hitler concentrated more and more powers into his person; his position as deputy hence became quite meaningless. This trend only increased in the early years of the war as most of the attention and glory became focused on the generals: Göring, Joseph Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler.
According to William L. Shirer, author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Hess might have flown to Britain in the hope that he could score a stunning diplomatic victory by sealing a peace between the Reich and Britain. He flew to Britain in May 1941 to meet the Duke of Hamilton and Brandon, parachuting from his Messerschmitt Bf 110 over Renfrewshire on May 10, and landing (breaking his ankle) at Floors Farm near Eaglesham, just south of Glasgow.
Hess believed Hamilton to be an opponent of Winston Churchill and came to see him because, strangely, he did not want to negotiate directly with Churchill or his cabinet because he held them wholly responsible for the outbreak of the war. As such, he did not consider that Germany could negotiate a peace with them. His proposal for peace was identical to the bargain Hitler tried to make with Neville Chamberlain prior to the invasion of Poland: that Germany would help protect the British Empire as long as Britain did not oppose Germany in Europe.
Hess' strange behavior and unreasonable proposals totally discredited him as a serious negotiator, especially since it became quickly obvious that he did not officially represent the German government. He was imprisoned by the British in the Tower of London. Hitler spread the word throughout Germany that Hess had become insane and acted of his own accord. Martin Bormann succeeded him as deputy.
Rudolf Hess (first row, second from left), in the defendant's box at the Nuremberg Trials. Hess was tried at the Nuremberg Trials after the war for crimes against peace (ironic considering his mission to Britain was to bring about peace)and was given a life sentence. For decades after, he was addressed simply as "prisoner number seven." Following the 1966 release of Baldur von Schirach and Albert Speer, he was the sole remaining inmate of Spandau Prison. He was said by the guards to have degenerated mentally and lost most of his memory.
In 1987, he died under Four Power imprisonment in the Spandau Prison in West Berlin. His death was ruled a suicide. His son Wolf Rüdiger Hess maintained until his own death that his father was murdered by the British SAS.
Eugene Bird wrote a novel about him titled The Loneliest Man in the World.
After Hess' death, neo-Nazis from Germany and the rest of Europe gathered in Wunsiedel, where Hess is buried, for a "memorial march."
The demonstrations take place every year around the day of Hess' death. They were banned from 1991 to 2000, during which time the neo-Nazis tried to gather in other cities and even in other countries (such as the Netherlands and Denmark). Since 2001 the demonstrations in Wunsiedel are legal again and over 5000 neo-Nazis marched in 2003, and around 7000 in 2004. These were among the biggest neo-Nazi demonstrations in Germany since 1945.
Claims concerning Hess' flight to Britain
Hess' journey to Britain was one of the odder events of World War II. It was claimed (in The Man Who Was M: The Life of Charles Henry Maxwell Knight by Anthony Masters, ISBN 0-631-13392-5) to be a scheme conceived by James Bond author Ian Fleming in his time as an officer in British Intelligence. According to Masters, the trap was laid in 1940 after Fleming read about the Anglo-German organisation The Link in the intelligence file of its founder, Admiral Sir Barry Domvile. Via an agent, Fleming fed Hess the line that The Link had been driven underground and was in a position to overthrow the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, and negotiate peace, and that the Duke of Hamilton and Brandon was prepared to be a negotiator.
Masters also claims that Hess selected the date of his flight after Ernst Schulter-Strathaus, Hess' consultant on astrology and the occult, informed him that there was going to be a rare alignment of 6 planets in the astrological sign of Taurus at the time of the full moon on May 11th, 1941, exactly one day after his landing in Scotland. Because Hess was himself born with the Sun in Taurus (Taurus was his Sun Sign, also called Star Sign), this system of prediction (called electional astrology) was believed by Hess and the astrologer to greatly increase the chances for success during the mission.
The Man Who Was M is the only known source of these claims.
There is circumstantial evidence that Hess was lured into flying to England by the British secret service. Violet Roberts, whose nephew, Walter Roberts, was a close relative to the Duke of Hamilton and was in the political intelligence and propaganda branch of the Secret Intelligence Service (SO1/PWE), was friends with Hess's mentor Karl Haushofer and initiated a letter to Haushofer that Hess took a great interest in prior to his flight. Haushofer replied to Violet Roberts and suggested a post office box in Portugal for further correspondence, which was intercepted by a British mail censor (the original note by Roberts and a followup note by Haushofer are missing; only Haushofer's reply is extant). Certain documents that Hess brought with him to England were sealed until 2017; when the seal was broken in 1991-92, the documents were missing. Speculation from Eduard Benes, head of the Czech government in exile and his intelligence chief Frantisek Moravetz, who worked with SO1/PWE, was that British Intelligence used Haushofer's reply to Violet Roberts to trap Hess. (See: Hess: the British Conspiracy, by McBlain and Trow, 2000.)
Various conspiracy theories have suggested the man imprisoned at Spandau was not Hess, but a double. These claims are generally not taken seriously. However, this has been the theme of at least two novels; Spandau Phoenix, by Greg Iles, features this idea prominently, and The Separation by Christopher Priest considers an alternate history where Hess' peace mission was a success.
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