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Rudolf Hess was the Deputy Führer of the Nazi Party. On May 10 1941 he made a solo flight to Scotland, where his plane was shot down by spitfires, and he made a parachute jump and was immediately arrested by British authorities. He claimed to have come to arrange peace talks with the Duke of Hamilton, who he believed was an opponent of British war policies (there were no indications the Duke was ever an opponent of Britain's war policies), the Duke of course denied having ever met the Deputy Führer (they might have met during the Berlin Olympics, but it is also possible that the Duke was mentioned to Hess by some of the other Nazis that did meet him during the Olympics, who might have misinterpreted something the Duke had said). Hess was held in custody until the end of the war when he was tried during the Nuremberg trials for war crimes. Because he had missed most of the war, and thus not taken part in many of the murderous decisions during the war, he did not get the death penalty but a life sentence. He served his sentence in Spandau, West Berlin, until he comitted suicide in 1987. He was then first buried in Wunsiedel, Bavaria, but since his grave became a shrine and pilgrimage site for Neo Nazis, it was decided in 2011 to cremate his body and his ashes were scattered in an unidentified lake.
But who was Rudolf Hess? Hess was the son of a merchant who served as an infantryman in the Imperial German Army during WW1. After the war he enrolled in the University of Munich where he studied geopolitics under professor Karl Haushofer, who was a proponent of the idea of Lebensraum, as in living space for the German people, and was one of the intellectuals that influenced Hitler's ideology. In 1920 he joined the new Nazi party where he befriended the new leader of the party: Adolf Hitler. After participating in the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, he first fled to Austria, but then returned voluntarily to Germany to serve time in Landsberg prison together with his friend Hitler. Here Hess aided Hitler with editing his book Mein Kampf (Hess was a terrible editor). This is also when he was promoted to Hitler's private secretary, and once the dynamic duo was out of jail, Hess continued in this role. In 1932 when the Strasserites left the Nazi party, Hitler appointed Hess to centralize the party into a more structured organization with no room for other factions within it.
And once Hitler became Chancellor in '33 Hess was appointed Deputy Führer of the Nazi party, thus in theory tasking him to control the party while Hitler was busy being dictator. Hess was further appointed Minister without Portfolio in 1933, and appointed to Hitler's Cabinet Council in 1938 and to the Council of Ministers for the Defence of the Reich in 1939. Hitler was thus making sure his friend Hess was given much power and influence. But in reality Hess was most often sidelined. The real administrative apparatus of the Nazi Party was under Martin Bohrman, and Hess was never given any specific task or government agency to run, making him something of a nobody. His role mostly just became to sign Hitler's or the Party's decrees into law, like for example the Nuremberg laws of 1935.
Now Hess was incredibly racist. He was convinced the wars (both WW1 and WW2) were caused by the Jews. He was also a proponent of the Black Horror on the Rhine myth, that colonial soldiers serving under the French (from Senegal, Indochina and Madagascar) had unleashed an orgy of rape and murder in the Rhineland during the French occupation 1918-30, something he was convinced was directed by the Jews. In reality of course this was all made up stuff that the right wing press in Germany ran with, and the Nazis used for propaganda.
After Hess little stunt that ended with him behind bars in Britain, Hitler promptly ordered the German press to portray his old friend as a lunatic who was deluded and deranged, and Hitler made sure Hess was stripped all his titles and positions within the party and the government, and secretly ordered Hess to be shot at sight if he ever returned to Germany. Hess mission was most likely not officially sanctioned, and Hitler himself probably didn't know about it. It was a weird solo adventure that ended in a complete fiasco. Why Hess thought it would work is something of a mystery. Maybe he had drunk the coolaid so much that he really believed England hated Churchill and would rise up against him if they just got a little push.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Hess
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rudolf-Hess
But who was Rudolf Hess? Hess was the son of a merchant who served as an infantryman in the Imperial German Army during WW1. After the war he enrolled in the University of Munich where he studied geopolitics under professor Karl Haushofer, who was a proponent of the idea of Lebensraum, as in living space for the German people, and was one of the intellectuals that influenced Hitler's ideology. In 1920 he joined the new Nazi party where he befriended the new leader of the party: Adolf Hitler. After participating in the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, he first fled to Austria, but then returned voluntarily to Germany to serve time in Landsberg prison together with his friend Hitler. Here Hess aided Hitler with editing his book Mein Kampf (Hess was a terrible editor). This is also when he was promoted to Hitler's private secretary, and once the dynamic duo was out of jail, Hess continued in this role. In 1932 when the Strasserites left the Nazi party, Hitler appointed Hess to centralize the party into a more structured organization with no room for other factions within it.
And once Hitler became Chancellor in '33 Hess was appointed Deputy Führer of the Nazi party, thus in theory tasking him to control the party while Hitler was busy being dictator. Hess was further appointed Minister without Portfolio in 1933, and appointed to Hitler's Cabinet Council in 1938 and to the Council of Ministers for the Defence of the Reich in 1939. Hitler was thus making sure his friend Hess was given much power and influence. But in reality Hess was most often sidelined. The real administrative apparatus of the Nazi Party was under Martin Bohrman, and Hess was never given any specific task or government agency to run, making him something of a nobody. His role mostly just became to sign Hitler's or the Party's decrees into law, like for example the Nuremberg laws of 1935.
Now Hess was incredibly racist. He was convinced the wars (both WW1 and WW2) were caused by the Jews. He was also a proponent of the Black Horror on the Rhine myth, that colonial soldiers serving under the French (from Senegal, Indochina and Madagascar) had unleashed an orgy of rape and murder in the Rhineland during the French occupation 1918-30, something he was convinced was directed by the Jews. In reality of course this was all made up stuff that the right wing press in Germany ran with, and the Nazis used for propaganda.
After Hess little stunt that ended with him behind bars in Britain, Hitler promptly ordered the German press to portray his old friend as a lunatic who was deluded and deranged, and Hitler made sure Hess was stripped all his titles and positions within the party and the government, and secretly ordered Hess to be shot at sight if he ever returned to Germany. Hess mission was most likely not officially sanctioned, and Hitler himself probably didn't know about it. It was a weird solo adventure that ended in a complete fiasco. Why Hess thought it would work is something of a mystery. Maybe he had drunk the coolaid so much that he really believed England hated Churchill and would rise up against him if they just got a little push.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Hess
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rudolf-Hess
Why did a Nazi leader crash-land in Scotland?
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