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Added: Jul 16, 2008

Duration: 3:55

Hess was born in Alexandria, Egypt, the eldest of the four children of Fritz H. Hess, a German Lutheran importer/exporter. His mother was of HELLENIC descent, of the Georgiadis family of Alexandria[citation needed] (where traditionally there had been a vibrant and rich Greek community). The family moved to Germany in 1908 and Rudolf was enrolled in boarding school there. Although he expressed interest in being an astronomer, his father convinced him to study business in Switzerland. At the onset of World War I he enlisted in the 7th Bavarian Field Artillery Regiment, became an infantryman and was awarded the Iron Cross, second class. After numerous injuries, including a chest wound severe enough that he was not allowed to return to the front as an infantryman, he transferred to the Imperial Air Corps (after being rejected once). He took aeronautical training and served in an operational squadron at the rank of lieutenant. On December 20, 1927 Hess married 27-year-old Ilse Pröhl (June 22, 1900--September 7, 1995) from Hanover. Together they had a son, Wolf Rüdiger Hess (November 18, 1937--October 24, 2001). Like Goebbels, Hess was privately distressed by the war with Britain. According to William L. Shirer, author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Hess may have hoped to score a diplomatic victory by sealing a peace between the Third Reich and Britain. According to Lt. Col. Eugene K. Bird, former U. S. commandant of Spandau prison, what really impelled Hess to fly to Britain were the behind-the-scenes moves by the Haushofers in Nazi Germany to contact the Duke of Hamilton in Scotland; for documentary proof, he shows the Haushofer Letters in the National Archives in Washington D. C. Hess flew to Britain in May 1941 to meet the Duke of Hamilton and Brandon, parachuting from his Messerschmitt Bf 110 over Renfrewshire on May 10 and landing (though breaking his ankle) at Floors Farm near Eaglesham, just south of Glasgow. Hess was quickly arrested, although the details of how this happened are somewhat unclear and remain controversial. In one newsreel clip, farmhand David McLean claims to have arrested Hess with his pitchfork. After being held in the Maryhill army barracks, he was transferred to Mytchett Place near Aldershot. The house was fitted out with microphones and sound recording equipment. Frank Foley and two other MI6 officers were given the job of debriefing Hess — or "Jonathan", as he was now known. Churchill's instructions were that Hess should be strictly isolated, and that every effort should be taken to get any information out of him that might be useful. Taken by surprise, Hitler had Hess's staff arrested, then spread word throughout Germany that Hess had gone insane and acted of his own accord. Hearing this, Hess began claiming to his interrogators that as part of a pre-arranged diplomatic cover story, Hitler had agreed to announce to the German people that his deputy Führer was insane. Meanwhile Hitler granted Hess's wife a pension. Martin Bormann succeeded Hess as deputy under a newly-created title. " My coming to England in this way is, as I realize, so unusual that nobody will easily understand it. I was confronted by a very hard decision. I do not think I could have arrived at my final choice unless I had continually kept before my eyes the vision of an endless line of children's coffins with weeping mothers behind them, both English and German, and another line of coffins of mothers with mourning children."

Channel: Film

Tags: adolf deputy deutschland fuhrer germany hess hitler man national nuremberg of peace rudolf socialist trial