Rudolf Hess

Rudolf Walter Richard Hess (Heß in German; 26 April 1894 – 17 August 1987) was a German politician, a leading member of the Nazi Party in Germany, and a convicted criminal of World War II. Appointed Deputy to the Führer (Stellvertreter des Führers) in 1933, Hess held that position until 1941, when he flew solo to Scotland in an attempt to negotiate the United Kingdom's exit from the Second World War. He was taken prisoner and eventually convicted of crimes against peace and conspiracy. He was still serving his life sentence at age 93 when he committed suicide in 1987.

Hess enlisted as an infantryman in the Imperial German Army at the outbreak of World War I. He was wounded several times during the war and was awarded the Iron Cross, 2nd Class, in 1915. Shortly before the war ended, he enrolled to train as an aviator, but he saw no action in that role. He left the armed forces in December 1918 with the rank of Leutnant der Reserve. In 1919, he enrolled at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU), where he studied geopolitics under Karl Haushofer, a proponent of the concept of Lebensraum ('living space'), which became one of the pillars of Nazi ideology. He joined the Nazi Party on 1 July 1920 and was at Hitler's side on 8 November 1923 for the Beer Hall Putsch, a failed Nazi attempt to seize control of the government of Bavaria. While serving a prison sentence for this attempted coup, he assisted Hitler with Mein Kampf, which became a foundation of the political platform of the Nazi Party.

After Hitler became Chancellor in January 1933, Hess was appointed Deputy Führer of the Nazi Party in April of the same year. He was elected to the Reichstag in the March elections, was made a Reichsleiter of the Nazi Party in June, and in December 1933, he became Minister without Portfolio in Hitler's cabinet. In addition to appearing on Hitler's behalf at speaking engagements and rallies, Hess signed into law much of the government's legislation, including the 1935 Nuremberg Laws, which stripped the Jews of Germany of their rights in the lead-up to the Holocaust. Hess was also appointed in 1938 to the Secret Cabinet Council and to the Council of Ministers for the Defence of the Reich in August 1939. Hitler decreed on the outbreak of war on 1 September 1939 that Hermann Göring was his official successor, and named Hess as next in line.