Biography
Declassified documents, memories of contemporaries and archives of historians to this day make add-ons to the biography of one of the most scandalous person of the Third Reich - Rudolph Hess, first secretary Adolf Hitler, zealous anti-Semit and Nazis. The accused Nuremberg process, co-author of the memories of the Fuhrer "My struggle" ("Mein Kampf") for a long life showed himself as a volitional, devoted man who committed a crime against humanity and peace.Childhood and youth
Rudolf Walter Richard Hes was born on April 26, 1894 in the suburbs of Alexandria, Egypt. The boy became the firstborn in the family of the merchant of Johann Fritz Hess and Textile Krara Münh daughter, then two more children were born: Alfred (1897) and Margarita (1908).
From the first years, Rudolph's life was burned in prohibitions: he grew up in the German community, a despotic father forbade the boy to communicate with the British and the Egyptians, and the domestic discipline was kept at home. First, hess studied at the local Protestant school, but there avoid contacts with children of another nationality failed, so Fritz translated the Son to home learning.
When Rudolf was 14 years old, the family moved to Germany, and the boy was in the Moscow House boarding school in Bar-Godesberg, where, because of the dark-meadow and dark hair, peers teased his "Egyptian". But, having mastered, the schoolboy began to do progress, having gone out in the number of the best students.
Fritz, who posted a major home-trading house IMPORTFIRMA Heß & Co., wanted to convey the matter to the son. The boy was sent to the highest commercial school in Switzerland. Rudolph did not protest against the father's desire to make him a merchant, however, when the First World War came, a young man without hesitation forgot about the profession and went to the front.
Hot knife manifested itself in his youth: hess was not entitled to rush into battle. He showed himself as an artilleryman and infantryman, in December 1918 he was demobilized by the pilot of the air force, having won the military award - the iron cross of the 2nd class.
The war handed out the material well-being of the hess family. Business, so carefully stored by Fritz, confiscated, and he was not able to mainly support children. War veterans offered to get an education for free, and 25-year-old Rudolph entered the University of Munich on an economist, where he met the future companion by Herman Gering.
Political activity
In 1919, Hess was at the meeting of the Company Tula, where the superiority of the Aryan race was discussed. Nationalist and anti-Semitic ideas, which sounded in the walls of society, determined the vector of the future of the head of the Hitler's Germany. And with the leader of this state, Rudolf met on May 19, 1920 at a meeting of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP).
According to the memories of the wife of Hess, Ilzy Prel, after the fateful meeting, the young man said:
"If anyone else will free us from Versailles, then it will be this man."Hitler and Gess immediately found a common language: both despised a society for defeat in the First World War, both hated the system in which the Weimar Republic lived. Men immediately got together, and Rudolph and did not move away at all from the future of the creator of the Third Reich. Later, in November 1923, guided by the highest feelings against Adolf, Gess attempted to seize power. The operation was called "Beer Pulling". As a result, both were in the Landsberg prison. There was a book "My struggle" ("MEIN KAMPF").
The conditions of detention in prison could not be called harsh: the arrestants were allowed to receive guests, playing cards, smoking, grow vegetables. But the future leaders of Nazi Germany were spent most of the time for conversations in the garden. Here, the love of hess to Adolf strengthened. He convened conversations with the idol, later these records entered "my struggle." And although the name of Rudolf is not specified in the co-authors, he edited the text, structured confused thoughts, polished style.
In January 1925, the Germans were free, and Hess after the repeated requests of Hitler entered him by the secretary. Rudolph turned out to be indispensable: accompanied the Fuhrera on trips, soothered before performances, was the schedule of encounters, took care of the diet and sleep mode. To get to the meeting to Hitler was impossible without agreeing with the faithful assistant. Almost due to the hess in 1933, the Führer came to power.
Owning a partbiler of a member of the NSDAP, hess had not previously occupied important posts in a political hierarchy. The establishment of business contacts, the composition of the propaganda booklets and the creation of the Hitler's personality cult - these functions Rudolph performed voluntarily. However, after establishing a national-socialist regime in Germany, a man connected to the parties' affairs - Adolf appointed him with his first deputy. In 1939, Herman Gering took this place.
First of all, Gess, being a person disciplined, took up the education of one-party counters: criticized cars left at expensive restaurants with service state numbers, expressed dissatisfaction with the excessive completeness of NSDAP members, a smoking and alcohol.
In addition, with the filing of Rudolf, they were forbidden to have "personal intercourse" with the Jews, arrange injury on them. The result of these anti-Semitic orders were Nuremberg Racial Laws of 1935 - "The Law on the Reich citizen" and the "Law on the Protection of German Blood and the German honor". Under the last document is the signature of the hess.
The ideas of Hitler about the conquest of the territories were completely afraid of the day, and the Nazis began preparations for the Second World War. The Führer saw a reliable ally in the UK, and therefore proposed to conclude an agreement: Germany should take the place of the dominant European power, and the United Kingdom is to return the German colonies. The decision was not taken, and then hess conceived the "mission of the world". But for this it was necessary to cross through the ban of Hitler not to leave the country until the end of the hostilities.
On May 10, 1941, Hess secretly flew to Scotland. Through the helpers, he handed the letter to Hitler, starting with the words:
"My Führer, if you got this letter, I am in England."The flight was unsuccessful, the capitulation was required, during which the German lost consciousness, and woke up surrounded by the military.
When Hitler got the notes of approximate, fell into rage - the deed of the hess could put under the shock established with the allies of communication. The former secretary of the Fuhrer was declared crazy, who allegedly fled from the country and crashed during the flight. Rudolf's name, his photo, portraits, Busts "erased" with "Persons" of Germany, and German himself called the traitor.
The Mission of the World Hess was to convince Winston Churchill to sign an agreement with Germany, but in July 1941 the USSR and the United Kingdom concluded an agreement on joint actions in the war against the Third Reich. Self-sacrifice was useless.
Conclusion and trial
May 11, 1941 Rudolf arrested. The British authorities interrogated him for 4 years, during this time the captive tried three times to commit suicide and fell into a mental disorder. At the time when he was transported to Germany to bring to the International Military Tribunal within the framework of the Nuremberg process, hess was in the state of Amnesia. Nevertheless, he was tried on a par with the 23 major military criminals. Details of the scandalous process are reflected in dozens of documentaries.
On October 1, 1946, the Court recognized the hess guilty for crimes against peace and humanity, war crimes, for the plans of the Nazi party, including aggression against the whole world. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, although the accusation required the death penalty.
A year later, in July 1947, seven convicts, including the hess, were brought to Prison to Shpandau. By 1966, the 72-year-old German remained the only alive of these seven prisoners. In the old age, Rudolph did not lose the art of negotiation. He managed to recruit the employee, so that he wrote his memoirs. When they learned about this, Hess writer was fired, and he was transferred to the chamber without amenities.
Since the 1960s, the world began to demand the early liberation of the chief criminal against humanity. Rudolph's family, his lawyers called for the fact that the German Sacrifice of the Vesti, contained in the inhuman conditions of the prison, and kill him terrible than those sentenced to the death penalty of the Nuremberg process. The thought of release rejected not only the tribunal, but hees himself:
"My honor for me is above my freedom."Until recent days, he never admitted guilt.
Personal life
In December 1927, after a 7-year-old relationship, Rudolph Hess took Ilves Prel. The German experienced tender feelings, composed poems for her. However, in correspondence with a friend Ilza wrote:
"As for married duties, I sometimes feel a student of the monastic school."
The only son, Wolf Ryudiger Hess, was born 10 years old marriage, November 18, 1937. His godfather became the leader of the Third Reich.
Ilsa was the only woman of hess, but contemporaries suspected a man in a non-traditional sexual orientation. Friends of Hitler have fought over the intimate relations of the two Germans, gave Rudolph nickname "Freulein Gess" because of his in love. But when hess married, jokes about his personal life stopped.
Death
On August 17, 1987, the 93-year-old concluded committed suicide, having fun in the prison cell. Obvious fact confirmed autopsy data.
Before 2011, hess's body was resting at Lutheran Cemetery in the German city of Agadidel. Then the lease of a land plot was then expired, and it was cremated on July 20, and Rudolph Ges's ashee was dispelled over the sea.