- Born
- Died
- Birth nameWalter Richard Rudolf Hess
- Height5′ 9″ (1.75 m)
- Rudolf Walter Richard Hess was a German politician and a leading member of the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Appointed Deputy Führer to Adolf Hitler in 1933, Hess held that position until 1941, when he flew solo to Scotland in an attempt to negotiate peace with the United Kingdom during World War II. He was taken prisoner and eventually convicted of crimes against peace. He was still serving his life sentence at the time of his suicide in 1987.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Bonitao
- He came from a respected merchant family with whom he grew up in the North African country until he was 14. From 1908 Heß attended a Protestant boarding school in Bad Godesberg. He then completed school with a secondary school leaving certificate in Neuchatel, Switzerland. Hess then began a commercial apprenticeship in Hamburg at his father's request. In 1914 he volunteered for the First World War, where he served as an infantryman and a pilot lieutenant and suffered several injuries. In 1919, Heß began studying economics, geography and geopolitics in Munich. Here he came into first contact with right-wing radical circles. He joined the "Thule Society" and the "Freikorps Epp".
In 1920 he joined Adolf Hitler's NSDAP as one of the first members. Hess took a key position in the National Socialist coup attempt of November 1923. After initially fleeing to Switzerland, he turned himself in in Germany, where he was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Hess served his sentence together with Adolf Hitler in Landsberg. Released early from prison in 1924, Heß rose to become Hitler's private secretary in 1925 after the NSDAP was re-founded. In 1927 Heß married Ilse Pröhl. In the wake of the NSDAP's internal party crisis, which led to the exclusion of Gregor Straßer at the end of 1932, Heß was promoted to chairman of the "Political Central Commission of the NSDAP".
The newly created committee was responsible for coordinating and monitoring National Socialist work in the state and local parliaments as well as the Nazi press. After the National Socialists came to power in January 1933, Hess was appointed "Deputy of the Leader" in the NSDAP three months later. As a result, he asserted Hitler's positions to the party leadership, whereby he also received legislative powers and the right to appoint inseminators. Also in 1933, Heß was appointed SS Obergruppenführer. He also entered the Reichstag. Towards the end of the year he was promoted to Reich Minister without portfolio.
In February 1938 he joined the Privy Cabinet Council and in August 1939 the Council of Ministers for Reich Defense. The beginning of the Second World War led to him being appointed Hitler's second successor. Despite his closeness to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist power center, Hess seems to have been affected by doubts about the propagated "final victory": On May 10, 1941, he went on a secret flight to Scotland, where he apparently held peace negotiations at the Duke of Hamilton's estate wanted to prepare with Great Britain. Hess attempted suicide in British captivity in October 1941. He increasingly fell into delusions and neuroses.
In Germany, Hitler declared his deputy a psychopath. In 1945, Heß was transferred from British captivity to Nuremberg, where he was accused in the main war crimes trial. On October 1, 1946, Hess was sentenced to life imprisonment for planning a war of aggression and conspiring against world peace. Hess initially began serving his sentence in Berlin-Spandau with six other Nazi prisoners. From 1966 onwards he was the only inmate in the fortress, which was under the control of the four Berlin occupying powers. Requests for clemency from the family and even the federal government were unsuccessful. On August 17, 1987, Rudolf Heß committed suicide in Berlin-Spandau.
As a result of his suicide, Hess temporarily became a martyr for old and new supporters of National Socialism.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Christian_Wolfgang_Barth
- SpouseIlse Pröhl(December 20, 1927 - August 17, 1987) (his death, 1 child)
- Children
- ParentsJohann Friedrich (Fritz) HessKlara Antonie Adelheid Münch
- On 10 May 1941, flew to Scotland in an effort to persuade the British to sue for peace. The British held him incommunicado for the rest of the war.
- Found with an electrical cord wrapped around his neck, his death was ruled a suicide. However, his family claims that Hess was in fact murdered. The warden that Hess befriended, Eugene Bird, also voiced concern that Hess was murdered.
- At Nuremberg, he was the highest-level Nazi official acquitted of war crimes and crimes against humanity, thus avoiding the death penalty. He was convicted of three counts of conspiracy and of crimes against the peace on 1 October 1946 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
- Served out his sentence at Spandau Prison in West Berlin, which was set aside to house Nazi war criminals. He became the only inmate in 1966, following the release of Albert Speer. During their months on guard duty the Soviet guards were as interested in watching the nearby British Army barracks as they were the prison.
- Deputy Führer of the Nazi Party (1933-1941).
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