The Rise of the Fourth Reich - ThereAreNoSunglasses

THE STRANGE CASE OF RUDOLF HESS 37RUDOLF HE S S WA S born in Egypt in 1894, the son of a German importer.He was well schooled and well traveled by the time he joined theGerman Army during World War I, serving in the same regiment as CorporalAdolf Hitler. He was wounded twice and later became a fighter pilot,but the war ended before he could experience much combat.Returning to Munich after the war, Hess helped other ex-servicemenin the paramilitary Freikorps to oust a short-lived Communist local government.After helping to break the Communist coup, Hess joined theThule Society and enrolled as a student at the University of Munich,where he met his future wife and the man who was to prove a major influenceon both Hitler and himself: Professor General Karl Haushofer.According to author William Bramley, Professor Haushofer was a memberof the Vril, another secret society based on a book by British RosicrucianLord Bulward Litton, about the visit of an Aryan “super race” to earthin the distant past. A mentor to both Hess and Hitler, Haushofer hadtraveled extensively in the Far East before becoming a general in the kaiser’sarmy of World War I. “His early associations with influential Japanesebusinessmen and statesmen were crucial in forming the German-Japanesealliance of World War II,” wrote author Peter Levenda. Haushofer becamethe first ranking Nazi to form relationships with South American governmentsin anticipation of a war with America. These relationships wouldprove instrumental in the later escape of war criminals from Europe.Haushofer, as a professor at the University of Munich, worked out Hitler’spolicy of Lebensraum, “living space” for a hemmed-in Germany. Althoughhe gained a reputation as the “man behind Hitler,” Haushofer’sviews on geopolitics were largely accepted by Hitler, but only after theycame from the mouth of Hess. “I was only able to influence [Hitler] throughHess,” he told his American captors in 1945.Both Hess and Haushofer first met Hitler at one of the beer hall meetingsof the German Workers Party. During the abortive Beer-hall Putschof 1923, when the new Nazi Party tried to seize power in Bavaria, Hesswas at Hitler’s side. When the coup failed, Hess drove off to Austria,