PEEBLES PROFILES
EPISODE XLI: Rudolf Hess
Rudolf Hess: the mystic with the buck-toothed grin, the secretary who helped write Mein Kampf, the Deputy Führer of the Third Reich, the failed peacemaker, the prisoner in the Tower of London, the amnesiac at Nuremberg, the last man of Spandau. His name is synonymous with the legacy of Nazi Germany.
However, the youthful Rudolf Hess is a bit more anonymous. He was a brave soldier who fought all across Europe during the Great War, where he received wounds, promotions, medals, and a purpose…
FAMILY AND CHILDHOOD
He was born Rudolf Walter Richard Hess to a wealthy German family (the oldest of three children) on April 26, 1894 in Ibrahimieh, a suburb of Alexandria, Egypt (then under British occupation, but part of the Ottoman Empire). Originally from Bohemia, the Hess family settled in Wunsiedel, Upper Franconia, in the 1760s. Rudolf’s grandfather, Johann Christian Hess, married Margaretha Bühler, the daughter of a Swiss consul, in 1861 in Trieste. After the birth of his father, Johann Fritz Hess, the family moved to Alexandria, Egypt.
Johann Christian Hess founded the import company Heß & Co. which his son, Johann Fritz Hess, took over in 1888. Rudolf’s mother, Klara, was the daughter of Rudolf Münch, a textile industrialist and councillor of commerce from Hof, Upper Franconia. His brother, Alfred, was born in 1897 and his sister, Margarete, was born in 1908. The family lived in a villa on the Egyptian coast near Alexandria, and visited Germany often from 1900, staying at their summer home in Reicholdsgrün (now part of Kirchenlamitz) in the Fichtel Mountains.
Hess’s youth in Egypt left him with a lifelong contempt for non-white peoples together with a strong admiration for the British Empire. His growing up under the “veiled protectorate” of Sir Evelyn Baring made him unique among the Nazi leaders in that he grew up under British rule, which he saw in very positive terms. Hess believed that the Egyptians could accomplish nothing on their own and credited all of the progress to the British “veiled protectorate”. A recurring theme in his later writings and speeches was that white peoples (especially those from countries in northwestern Europe like Britain and Germany) were destined to rule the world and should cooperate with one another. This attitude would come back to haunt him many years down the road!
From 1900 to 1908, young Hess attended a German language Protestant school in Alexandria. Eventually, he was sent back to Germany to study at a boarding school in Bad Godesberg. Hess demonstrated aptitudes for science and mathematics, but his father wished him to join the family business, Hess & Co. Hence in 1911, young Hess was sent to study at the École supérieure de commerce in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. After a year there, he took an apprenticeship at a trading company in Hamburg.
THE WOUNDED WARRIOR
Within weeks of the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Hess enlisted in the 7th Bavarian Field Artillery Regiment. His initial posting was against the British on the Somme River, but he was present at the First Battle of Ypres in Belgium. On November 9, 1914, Hess transferred to the 1st Infantry Regiment stationed near Arras. He was awarded the Iron Cross, Second Class and promoted to Gefreiter (corporal) in April 1915.
After additional training in Munster, Hess was promoted to Vizefeldwebel (senior non-commissioned officer) and received the Bavarian Military Merit Cross. Returning to the front lines in November 1915, he fought in Artois, participating in the battle for the town of Neuville-Saint-Vaast.
In March 1916, a throat infection put Hess out of action for two months, but in May, he saw action in the Battle of Verdun. On June 12, 1916, he was hit by shrapnel in the left hand and arm while fighting near the village of Thiaumont. After taking another month off to recover, Hess was sent back to the Verdun area, where he remained until the battle ended in December.
Hess was promoted to platoon leader of the Tenth Company of the 18th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment, which was serving in Rumania. He was wounded on July 23, 1917 and again a little over two weeks later on August 8th. The first injury was a shell splinter to the left arm (which was dressed in the field), but the second was a bullet wound that entered the upper chest near the armpit and exited near his spinal column, leaving a pea-sized entry wound and a cherry stone-sized exit wound on his back. By August 20th, Hess was well enough to travel, so he was sent to hospital first in Hungary, and eventually back to Germany in a hospital in Meissen.
In October 1917, Hess was promoted to Leutnant der Reserve. He was also recommended for the Iron Cross, First Class, but never received the award. At his father’s request, Hess was transferred to a hospital closer to home, arriving at Alexandersbad on October 25th.
While still convalescing, Hess had requested that he be allowed to enroll to train as a pilot. After some Christmas leave with his family, he reported to Munich. Hess received basic flight training at Oberschleissheim and Lechfeld Air Base (from March to June 1918) and advanced training at Valenciennes in France (October 1918).
On October 14th, Hess was assigned to Jagdstaffel 35b, a Bavarian fighter squadron equipped with Fokker D.VII biplanes. Unfortunately, he saw no action, as the November 11th armistice denied him the opportunity.
Hess was discharged from the military in December 1918. The family fortunes had taken a serious downturn, as their business interests in Egypt had been expropriated by the British. Hess joined the Thule Society, an anti-Semitic right-wing Völkisch group, and the Freikorps of Colonel Ritter von Epp, one of many such volunteer paramilitary organisations active in Germany at the time. Bavaria witnessed frequent and often bloody conflicts between right-wing groups (such as the Freikorps) and left-wing forces as they fought for control of the state during this period. Early in 1919, Hess was a participant in street battles, and he also led a group which distributed thousands of anti-Semitic pamphlets in Munich. Hess later said that Egypt made him a nationalist, the war made him a socialist, and Munich made him an anti-Semite.
THE DEVOUT NATIONAL SOCIALIST
Later that year, Hess enrolled in the University of Munich, where he studied geopolitics under Karl Haushofer, a proponent of the concept of Lebensraum (“living space”), which became one of the pillars of Nazi ideology. On July 1, 1920, Hess joined the Nazi Party and was at the side of Adolf Hitler for the November 8, 1923 Munich Beer Hall Putsch, a failed attempt to seize control of the Bavarian state. While serving time at Landsberg Prison for his role in the coup, Hess assisted Hitler with Mein Kampf, which eventually became “the Bible of National Socialism “.
Two months after Hitler became Chancellor on January 30, 1933, Hess was appointed Deputy Führer of the Nazi Party. He was elected to the Reichstag in March 1933 and was made a Reichsleiter of the Nazi Party in June. By 1934, Hess was “minister without portfolio” in Hitler’s cabinet. He was also appointed to the Cabinet Council in 1938 and the Council of Ministers for Defense of the Reich one month before the outbreak of World War II.
On the first day of the conflict (September 1, 1939), Hitler decreed that Hermann Göring was his official successor, with Rudolf Hess as next in line. In addition to appearing on Hitler’s behalf at speaking engagements and rallies, Hess signed into law much of the Nazi legislation. One such piece was the Nuremberg Laws of September 1935, which stripped German Jews of their rights in the lead-up to the Holocaust.
On May 10, 1941, Hess made a solo flight to Scotland, where he hoped to arrange peace talks with the Duke of Hamilton, whom he believed to be a prominent opponent of the British government’s war policy. His goal was for both Great Britain and Nazi Germany to form an alliance against Soviet Russia. The news infuriated Hitler, especially since Operation Barbarossa (the attack on the Soviet Union) was still in the works, and Hess was, in effect, “letting the cat out of the bag”.
Both Hitler and the British authorities deemed Hess insane, with the latter immediately arresting the now-deposed Deputy Führer on his arrival. Hess was imprisoned in the Tower of London and later moved to Maindiff Court Hospital in Wales (after a suicide attempt in the former), where he would remain until the end of the war.
Hess finally returned to Germany to stand trial along with other major war-criminals at Nuremberg’s Palace of Justice from November 1945 to October 1946. During most of the trial, Hess claimed to be suffering from amnesia and never took the stand, but he later admitted that it was merely a ruse. The tribunal convicted Hess of crimes against peace and conspiracy with other German leaders to commit crimes. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in West Berlin’s Spandau Prison.
PRISONER NUMBER 7
For twenty years, Rudolf Hess was the lone inmate at the massive prison. Even though the cost to keep Spandau running was enormous, the Soviet Union blocked repeated attempts by family members and prominent politicians to win his early release.
But on August 17, 1987, the old man known simply as “Prisoner Number 7” committed suicide in a summer house that had been set up in the prison garden as a reading room. Hess took an extension cord from one of the lamps, strung it over a window latch, and hung himself. A short note to his family was found in his pocket, thanking them for all that they had done. The Four Powers released a statement exactly one month later, ruling that Hess’s death was a suicide. He was initially buried at a secret location to avoid media attention or demonstrations by neo-Nazi sympathizers, but his body was re-interred in a family plot at Wunsiedel on March 17, 1988.
But Hess’s lawyer, Alfred Seidl, felt that his client (aged ninety-three) was too old and frail to have managed to kill himself. Wolf Rüdiger Hess repeatedly claimed that his father had been murdered by the British Secret Intelligence Service to prevent him from revealing information about British misconduct during the Second World War.
Immediately after his death, Spandau Prison was demolished to prevent it from becoming a neo-Nazi shrine.
EPISODE XLI: Rudolf Hess
Rudolf Hess: the mystic with the buck-toothed grin, the secretary who helped write Mein Kampf, the Deputy Führer of the Third Reich, the failed peacemaker, the prisoner in the Tower of London, the amnesiac at Nuremberg, the last man of Spandau. His name is synonymous with the legacy of Nazi Germany.
However, the youthful Rudolf Hess is a bit more anonymous. He was a brave soldier who fought all across Europe during the Great War, where he received wounds, promotions, medals, and a purpose…
FAMILY AND CHILDHOOD
He was born Rudolf Walter Richard Hess to a wealthy German family (the oldest of three children) on April 26, 1894 in Ibrahimieh, a suburb of Alexandria, Egypt (then under British occupation, but part of the Ottoman Empire). Originally from Bohemia, the Hess family settled in Wunsiedel, Upper Franconia, in the 1760s. Rudolf’s grandfather, Johann Christian Hess, married Margaretha Bühler, the daughter of a Swiss consul, in 1861 in Trieste. After the birth of his father, Johann Fritz Hess, the family moved to Alexandria, Egypt.
Johann Christian Hess founded the import company Heß & Co. which his son, Johann Fritz Hess, took over in 1888. Rudolf’s mother, Klara, was the daughter of Rudolf Münch, a textile industrialist and councillor of commerce from Hof, Upper Franconia. His brother, Alfred, was born in 1897 and his sister, Margarete, was born in 1908. The family lived in a villa on the Egyptian coast near Alexandria, and visited Germany often from 1900, staying at their summer home in Reicholdsgrün (now part of Kirchenlamitz) in the Fichtel Mountains.
Hess’s youth in Egypt left him with a lifelong contempt for non-white peoples together with a strong admiration for the British Empire. His growing up under the “veiled protectorate” of Sir Evelyn Baring made him unique among the Nazi leaders in that he grew up under British rule, which he saw in very positive terms. Hess believed that the Egyptians could accomplish nothing on their own and credited all of the progress to the British “veiled protectorate”. A recurring theme in his later writings and speeches was that white peoples (especially those from countries in northwestern Europe like Britain and Germany) were destined to rule the world and should cooperate with one another. This attitude would come back to haunt him many years down the road!
From 1900 to 1908, young Hess attended a German language Protestant school in Alexandria. Eventually, he was sent back to Germany to study at a boarding school in Bad Godesberg. Hess demonstrated aptitudes for science and mathematics, but his father wished him to join the family business, Hess & Co. Hence in 1911, young Hess was sent to study at the École supérieure de commerce in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. After a year there, he took an apprenticeship at a trading company in Hamburg.
THE WOUNDED WARRIOR
Within weeks of the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Hess enlisted in the 7th Bavarian Field Artillery Regiment. His initial posting was against the British on the Somme River, but he was present at the First Battle of Ypres in Belgium. On November 9, 1914, Hess transferred to the 1st Infantry Regiment stationed near Arras. He was awarded the Iron Cross, Second Class and promoted to Gefreiter (corporal) in April 1915.
After additional training in Munster, Hess was promoted to Vizefeldwebel (senior non-commissioned officer) and received the Bavarian Military Merit Cross. Returning to the front lines in November 1915, he fought in Artois, participating in the battle for the town of Neuville-Saint-Vaast.
In March 1916, a throat infection put Hess out of action for two months, but in May, he saw action in the Battle of Verdun. On June 12, 1916, he was hit by shrapnel in the left hand and arm while fighting near the village of Thiaumont. After taking another month off to recover, Hess was sent back to the Verdun area, where he remained until the battle ended in December.
Hess was promoted to platoon leader of the Tenth Company of the 18th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment, which was serving in Rumania. He was wounded on July 23, 1917 and again a little over two weeks later on August 8th. The first injury was a shell splinter to the left arm (which was dressed in the field), but the second was a bullet wound that entered the upper chest near the armpit and exited near his spinal column, leaving a pea-sized entry wound and a cherry stone-sized exit wound on his back. By August 20th, Hess was well enough to travel, so he was sent to hospital first in Hungary, and eventually back to Germany in a hospital in Meissen.
In October 1917, Hess was promoted to Leutnant der Reserve. He was also recommended for the Iron Cross, First Class, but never received the award. At his father’s request, Hess was transferred to a hospital closer to home, arriving at Alexandersbad on October 25th.
While still convalescing, Hess had requested that he be allowed to enroll to train as a pilot. After some Christmas leave with his family, he reported to Munich. Hess received basic flight training at Oberschleissheim and Lechfeld Air Base (from March to June 1918) and advanced training at Valenciennes in France (October 1918).
On October 14th, Hess was assigned to Jagdstaffel 35b, a Bavarian fighter squadron equipped with Fokker D.VII biplanes. Unfortunately, he saw no action, as the November 11th armistice denied him the opportunity.
Hess was discharged from the military in December 1918. The family fortunes had taken a serious downturn, as their business interests in Egypt had been expropriated by the British. Hess joined the Thule Society, an anti-Semitic right-wing Völkisch group, and the Freikorps of Colonel Ritter von Epp, one of many such volunteer paramilitary organisations active in Germany at the time. Bavaria witnessed frequent and often bloody conflicts between right-wing groups (such as the Freikorps) and left-wing forces as they fought for control of the state during this period. Early in 1919, Hess was a participant in street battles, and he also led a group which distributed thousands of anti-Semitic pamphlets in Munich. Hess later said that Egypt made him a nationalist, the war made him a socialist, and Munich made him an anti-Semite.
THE DEVOUT NATIONAL SOCIALIST
Later that year, Hess enrolled in the University of Munich, where he studied geopolitics under Karl Haushofer, a proponent of the concept of Lebensraum (“living space”), which became one of the pillars of Nazi ideology. On July 1, 1920, Hess joined the Nazi Party and was at the side of Adolf Hitler for the November 8, 1923 Munich Beer Hall Putsch, a failed attempt to seize control of the Bavarian state. While serving time at Landsberg Prison for his role in the coup, Hess assisted Hitler with Mein Kampf, which eventually became “the Bible of National Socialism “.
Two months after Hitler became Chancellor on January 30, 1933, Hess was appointed Deputy Führer of the Nazi Party. He was elected to the Reichstag in March 1933 and was made a Reichsleiter of the Nazi Party in June. By 1934, Hess was “minister without portfolio” in Hitler’s cabinet. He was also appointed to the Cabinet Council in 1938 and the Council of Ministers for Defense of the Reich one month before the outbreak of World War II.
On the first day of the conflict (September 1, 1939), Hitler decreed that Hermann Göring was his official successor, with Rudolf Hess as next in line. In addition to appearing on Hitler’s behalf at speaking engagements and rallies, Hess signed into law much of the Nazi legislation. One such piece was the Nuremberg Laws of September 1935, which stripped German Jews of their rights in the lead-up to the Holocaust.
On May 10, 1941, Hess made a solo flight to Scotland, where he hoped to arrange peace talks with the Duke of Hamilton, whom he believed to be a prominent opponent of the British government’s war policy. His goal was for both Great Britain and Nazi Germany to form an alliance against Soviet Russia. The news infuriated Hitler, especially since Operation Barbarossa (the attack on the Soviet Union) was still in the works, and Hess was, in effect, “letting the cat out of the bag”.
Both Hitler and the British authorities deemed Hess insane, with the latter immediately arresting the now-deposed Deputy Führer on his arrival. Hess was imprisoned in the Tower of London and later moved to Maindiff Court Hospital in Wales (after a suicide attempt in the former), where he would remain until the end of the war.
Hess finally returned to Germany to stand trial along with other major war-criminals at Nuremberg’s Palace of Justice from November 1945 to October 1946. During most of the trial, Hess claimed to be suffering from amnesia and never took the stand, but he later admitted that it was merely a ruse. The tribunal convicted Hess of crimes against peace and conspiracy with other German leaders to commit crimes. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in West Berlin’s Spandau Prison.
PRISONER NUMBER 7
For twenty years, Rudolf Hess was the lone inmate at the massive prison. Even though the cost to keep Spandau running was enormous, the Soviet Union blocked repeated attempts by family members and prominent politicians to win his early release.
But on August 17, 1987, the old man known simply as “Prisoner Number 7” committed suicide in a summer house that had been set up in the prison garden as a reading room. Hess took an extension cord from one of the lamps, strung it over a window latch, and hung himself. A short note to his family was found in his pocket, thanking them for all that they had done. The Four Powers released a statement exactly one month later, ruling that Hess’s death was a suicide. He was initially buried at a secret location to avoid media attention or demonstrations by neo-Nazi sympathizers, but his body was re-interred in a family plot at Wunsiedel on March 17, 1988.
But Hess’s lawyer, Alfred Seidl, felt that his client (aged ninety-three) was too old and frail to have managed to kill himself. Wolf Rüdiger Hess repeatedly claimed that his father had been murdered by the British Secret Intelligence Service to prevent him from revealing information about British misconduct during the Second World War.
Immediately after his death, Spandau Prison was demolished to prevent it from becoming a neo-Nazi shrine.