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.

 References 

Category:1894 births
Category:1987 deaths
Category:Criminals who committed suicide
Category:German prisoners
Category:German war criminals
Category:Government ministers of Nazi Germany
Category:Members of the Reichstag (Nazi Germany)
Category:Members of the Reichstag (Weimar Republic)
Category:Nazis who committed suicide
Category:People from Alexandria
Category:People who committed suicide in prison custody
Category:Politicians of the Nazi Party
Category:Politicians who committed suicide
Category:Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment
Category:Sturmabteilung people
Category:SS officers
Category:Suicides by asphyxiation
Category:Suicides in Germany
Category:Occultists
Category:German Lutherans