Nazi Party leader and Hitler’s deputy, sentenced to life imprisonment at the Nuremberg trials.
Hess joined the Nazi Party in 1920 and became a close associate of Hitler. He was appointed deputy party leader in 1933, and in 1939 Hitler placed him second after Hermann Göring in the line of succession. In May 1941 he flew alone to Scotland in an attempt to negotiate an end to the war with Britain; the British government rejected his proposals and held him as a prisoner of war. After the war, the Nuremberg tribunal convicted him of crimes against peace and sentenced him to life imprisonment, which he served at Spandau Prison.
Activities and affiliations
- Political and party leadership · Nazi party and regime
The Nuremberg trial and life imprisonment
At the International Military Tribunal, which opened on 20 November 1945, the judges considered a request to postpone Hess’s trial on grounds of mental condition. After examining medical reports and Hess’s own statement, they ruled on 1 December that there was no basis for postponement. The hearings of evidence and counsel’s arguments ended on 31 August 1946. On 1 October, the Tribunal found Hess guilty on Counts One and Two, concerning conspiracy to commit crimes against peace and the planning and preparation of aggressive war; it acquitted him on Counts Three and Four, covering war crimes and crimes against humanity. Hess received a life sentence and was transferred to Spandau Prison in Berlin in 1947, where he remained until his death in 1987. From 1966 he was the prison’s sole inmate. He was found hanged in the prison in 1987; although widely reported as an apparent suicide, the manner of death is not stated here as certain.