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. 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.Īfter Hitler became Chancellor in January 1933, Hess was appointed Deputy Führer of the Nazi Party in April. Hess 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.

In 1919, Hess enrolled in the University of Munich, 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 left the armed forces in December 1918 with the rank of Leutnant der Reserve. Shortly before the war ended, Hess enrolled to train as an aviator, but he saw no action in that role.

He was wounded several times during the war and was awarded the Iron Cross, 2nd Class, in 1915. Hess enlisted as an infantryman in the Imperial German Army at the outbreak of World War I. He was still serving his life sentence at the time of his suicide in 1987. He was taken prisoner and eventually convicted of crimes against peace. Appointed Deputy Führer to Adolf Hitler in 1933, Hess held that position until 1941, when he flew solo to Scotland in an attempt to negotiate peace with the United Kingdom during World War II.

Rudolf Walter Richard Hess ( Heß in German 26 April 1894 – 17 August 1987) was a German politician and a leading member of the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany.

Prison architect pow mod