Near the end, Rudolf Hess in Spandau by the summerhouse where he hanged himself
STANDING outside the summerhouse where he would be found hanged, this is Rudolf Hess in one of the last known photographs taken of the man who was Adolf Hitler’s deputy.
Hess posed for the previously-unpublished picture in the mid-1980s in the grounds of Spandau Prison in West Berlin where he spent the last 40 years of his life.
The once-powerful Nazi – jailed for life at the Nuremberg war trials for crimes against peace – has become a frail and elderly man relying on a walking stick for support.
Hess entered Spandau in July 1947 and was found hanged in August 1987 at the age of 93. For 11 years until his death he was the only inmate. After he died the prison was demolished to stop it becoming a neo-Nazi
‘It shows how far he had fallen’
shrine. The image has emerged as part of an archive of material collected by a British prison warden who got to know Hess in Spandau. Another picture shows the glassfronted summerhouse which was built for Hess as a reading room.
There is also a note Hess wrote in Spandau for his only child in which he explains the motive for his solo flight from Germany to the UK in May 1941 in a secret bid to broker peace at a time when he was deeply concerned for the future of Germany.
In the note dated June 27, 1983, Hess tells his son Wolf, who was three when his father set off: ‘I made it once to England for you.’ Hitler was furious at the betrayal by Hess whose bizarre mission ended when his Messerschmitt ran out of fuel over Scotland and he parachuted out leaving the plane to crash. He was held by a pitchfork-wielding farmer before being taken into custody. The archive is being sold by Wiltshire auctioneers Henry Aldridge and Son of Devizes. It is expected to fetch £8,000 when it goes under the hammer on Saturday.
Among the many documents are requests by Hess to prison staff for clothing and toiletries. Andrew Aldridge, from the auctioneers, said: ‘The archive shows how far this once powerful man had fallen.’
Hess’s apparent suicide remains shrouded in conspiracy theories, with some claiming he was murdered by British agents to stop him revealing allegations of misconduct by Britain in the Second World War.