Rudolf Hess flew solo to Britain during World War II—claiming he wanted peace. But at the Nuremberg Trials, his past told a different story. Was he insane, or still loyal to Hitler?

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Do you deny your responsibility for the crimes committed by the Nazi regime? >> That was one of the first questions asked to Rudolph Hess at the Nuremberg trials. He sat still. I remember nothing. I was a spectator, not a decision maker. Then came the next question, one that was harder to escape. Then why did you secretly fly to Britain in the middle of a world war? >> Hess didn’t deny it. I came to negotiate peace between two great Aryan nations, but no one had sent him. He flew alone without orders and crashlanded in Scotland. Hitler called him insane and erased his name from the Nazi ranks. But years earlier, Hess had to help write the laws that paved the way to genocide. In 1946, the sentence was announced, life imprisonment. Hess smirked and said, “I regret nothing. I would do it all again.” He died in 1987. Still a prisoner, still loyal to Hitler. And to this day, one question remains. Was Rudolph Hess a madman chasing peace or a believer who never stopped chasing Hitler’s war?

35 Comments

  1. That's something that we'll never have a definitive answer to, because Hess claimed to have amnesia, and historians seem to go with that because his behavior by himself also spoke to someone with amnesia; so it didn't appear that he was putting on a show for the Nuremberg tribunal.

  2. Rudolf Hess had friends high up in England. Hitler sent many peace deals to England and we denied them all. He spoke to Hess knowing he had friends in England, to fly over speak to them and try persuade a peace deal. Churchill was having none of it and locked him up. It’s interesting that Hitler sent so many peace deals to us even though he was wining the war.

  3. When Goring, Von Ribbentrop, and the others who got a death sentence, heard that Hess would get to drink, eat, piss, and 💩 for thirty or more years, how they must have envied him.

  4. This is wrong. His peace mission was well planned, backed by Hitler and with the knowledge of high ranking British politicians and the Royal Palace. This has been documented in several well researched books. It had to be kept a secret "forever", so Hess was kept in prison until he died. The Soviets, the French and the Americans didn't mind him being released, but not the British, so he had to die by "suicide", which he in his weakened fysical shape impossibly could have done.

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