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Rudolf Hess was a leading member of the Nazi Party and Deputy Führer to Adolf Hitler.
But in 1941 he did something so unexpected that the Germans,
British, and Soviets alike dismissed him as mentally unstable.
The afternoon of May 10, Hess climbed into his aircraft and flew to Scotland.
He claims that he was there to negotiate a peace deal with the United Kingdom and end the war.
Hitler was infuriated, and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin believed
a secret anti-Bolshevik alliance was being forged between the British and the Germans.
Ultimately, the British held him prisoner until the end of the war,
and Hess was then sentenced to life in prison at the Nuremberg trials for crimes against peace.
The former Nazi Deputy Leader was found hanging in a garden house at Spandau prison in 1987.
It was declared a suicide, but many historians reckon it could have been foul play.
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A Greater Germany
Rudolf Hess was born in Alexandria, Egypt, on April 26,
1894. He fought in World War I and was terribly disappointed by the German surrender,
so he became one of the first followers and members of the Nazi Party.
When he met Hitler in 1919, Hess was intrigued by his discourse,
and they formed a friendship that kept growing closer with time.
In 1923, they both took part in the Munich Putsch, a failed coup d’état, and were
imprisoned together. As cellmates, Hess helped the future dictator with his first book, ‘Mein Kampf.’
As Deputy Leader of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1941, Hess signed the Nuremberg race laws in
1935 and helped plot the German territorial expansion plans that led to World War II.
He would write of the party’s growth: (QUOTE) “Some day it will arise,
this greater Germany that shall embrace all who are of german blood.”
But once the war started, his influence quickly declined.
Hess was interested in occultism, and he let Astrologers guide his actions.
On May 10, 1941, he was told that a mission that had been gestating in his mind
would be successful if executed that same day.
Hess then took a Messerschmitt 110 twin-engine fighter modified for longer distances
and set course to Scotland. He had served as a pilot in World War I
and could navigate at night using charts to guide him through unfamiliar territory.
He was also able to avoid British air defenses by flying low.
The Nazi leader ran out of fuel five hours later and was unable to land, so he parachuted out of
the plane and landed south of Glasgow. He was just 12 miles from his destination, Dungavel House.
A farmer found Hess, who asked to be taken to the Duke of Hamilton.
He claimed to come on a mission of peace.
Hess had met the Duke in the 1936 Olympics and strongly believed that he could be an asset to
tilt the scale in Hitler’s favor, even expecting him to lead a faction of Nazi sympathizers.
He was wrong.
Politics
Hess was taken to the local police, where he was arrested and thoroughly interrogated.
He was eventually transferred to Buchanan Castle in Stirlingshire, Scotland, then to the Tower of
London, and finally to Mytchett Place in Surrey, a fortified mansion designated as ‘Camp Z.’
He kept maintaining his posture of wanting to reach a peace treaty.
Before 1940, Hitler himself believed that a united front could be formed with Britain
against Judaism and Bolshevism. The true fight, as he saw it, was against the Soviets.
Some theories suggest that Hess went to Britain to try to appeal to a
shared feeling of superiority of the Nordic races and Nazi ideals of authoritarianism.
To the Soviets, it was plausible that Britain wanted to reach a peace agreement with Germany
and that both powers were uniting against them. Stalin firmly believed for years that
the British had instigated Hess's flight, an idea nourished by the secrecy surrounding the incident.
However, Hitler was dumbfounded by his friend’s actions. Joseph Goebbels wrote that:
(QUOTE) “The Fuhrer is absolutely crushed.” And Albert Speer, standing outside Hitler’s office,
reported the dictator's reaction as: (QUOTE) “An inarticulate, almost animal out-cry.”
Hitler was mainly concerned that his allies would
think he was negotiating with Britain behind their backs.
By 8 am on May 11, German radio announced to the public that
Hess was mentally unstable and delusional.
Meanwhile, Goebbels worried that the German public was: (QUOTE) “rightly asking how such a fool could
be second to the Fuhrer,” and feared British propaganda would take advantage of the capture.
Hess’s face and image were erased from German History,
and he would be known as a traitor after that.
On June 9, Hitler launched Aktion Hess, an operation to arrest hundreds of astrologers,
faith healers, and occultists.
And on June 16, Hess attempted suicide by hurling himself down a flight of stairs.
This would be the first of several times that he tried to take his own life.
A Verdict
The British eventually concluded that Hess had acted of his own accord and had nothing
to do with Hitler’s plans. Still, he was often visited by intelligence officers and psychiatrists
eager to unravel his mind while seeking secrets and clues about the Nazi Party.
The British held him prisoner until the war ended and he was returned to Germany.
In 1946, Hess was prosecuted along with high-ranking Nazi officials at the Nuremberg
trials. A psychiatrist determined that he suffered from a hysteric psycho-neurosis and
had developed a paranoid-schizoid personality. Still, he was in condition to be tried.
During the trial, Hess declared that: (QUOTE) “I do not defend myself against accusers
to whom I deny the right to bring charges against me and my fellow-countrymen.
I will not discuss accusations which concern things which are
purely German matters and therefore of no concern to foreigners. [...]
I was permitted to work for many years of my life
under the greatest son whom my people has brought forth in its thousand year history.
Even if I could, I would not want to erase this period of time from my existence.
I am happy to know that I have done my duty, to my people, my duty as a German,
as a National Socialist, as a loyal follower of my Fuehrer. I do not regret anything.”
His life was ultimately spared, but he received a life sentence.
In 1947, Hess was transferred to Spandau Prison in
Berlin along with other Nazi officials like Albert Speer.
But most of them were eventually released due to health issues or after completing their sentence.
Hess was left alone from 1966 to 1987 in a prison built for hundreds. Under a previous agreement,
Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union took charge of the prison,
and there was even a monthly handover ceremony.
It cost about 670,000 dollars a year at the expense of the Western German
taxpayers to support the convict. He was guarded by 37 soldiers and an officer,
plus a staff of 48 cleaning women, a cook, a doctor, and a chaplain, among others.
Britain and the US expressed their wishes to either transfer or release the former Nazi leader,
but the Soviet Union refused. Moreover, the prison's location within Berlin's British sector
gave the Soviets access to the West, a leverage they were unwilling to let go.
Time to Ponder
By the 1980s, Hess was allowed a more relaxed lifestyle.
He moved freely around the prison and could read, watch television, or do gardening.
As he became older and increasingly fragile, he was assigned a personal medic.
Over 40 years, his routine remained relatively unchanged. He rose at 6:45am and went to sleep
at 10:00pm. He was allowed to write one letter a month and receive one in return. He was also
given four censored newspapers each day, but he was forbidden to read anything about the Nazis.
For security reasons, he was often moved from cell to cell. And when he needed to go to the British
military hospital, a convoy escorted him while a whole wing at the facility would be closed.
On August 17, 1987, the 93-year-old was found hanging from a lamp cord in a summer
house in one of the gardens. A judge declared it a suicide,
but his family and many historians believe he was murdered by British intelligence.
Hess’s actions during that fateful afternoon on May 10, 1941,
still generate debates among historians. In 2011, a report handed Hess’s adjutant Karlheinz Pintsch
to Hitler on the morning of May 11 was unearthed. It implied that Hitler was aware of Hess’s plans
to open peace negotiations with the United Kingdom. But the truth may never be revealed.
The prison where Hess spent 46 years of his life as Prisoner Number 7 was eventually demolished
and turned into a shopping center and a car park.
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