Rudolf Hess

Not to be confused with Rudolf Höss.

Rudolf Hess

Rudolf Walter Richard Hess (Heß in German) (26 April 1894 – 17 August 1987) was a high-ranking leader in Nazi Germany and a member of Adolf Hitler's inner circle. He was the third most powerful man in the Third Reich from 1933 to 1941 (after Hitler and Hermann Göring).

Early life

Rudolf Hess was born in Alexandria, Egypt, but moved back to Germany in 1908. He joined the army in World War I and was a soldier from 1914 until 1918.

Nazi career

In 1920 Hess joined the Nazi Party, and in 1922 he joined the SA. He flew to Scotland during World War II in 1941 with the intention of putting an end to the war, but was arrested.

After the war, in 1946, Hess was tried at the Nuremberg Trials and sentenced to life imprisonment. He spent the rest of his life in prison until his death in 1987 at the Allied Military Prison in Spandau, Berlin. Since 1966 he had been the only prisoner there.

Hess's death was caused by strangulation by an electrical cord; officials recorded it as a suicide.