In Part 5 of our Crime Story series Nuremberg, we examine the strange story of Rudolf Hess, his notorious path to the defendant’s dock and the psychiatric symptoms that he presented in the early days of the trial.
To commemorate the 75th anniversary of the International Military Tribunal, Crime Story presents a new series, NUREMBERG. Sean Smith examines the many dimensions of the historic judicial proceedings. Drawing on official transcripts of the trial, as well as a vast bibliography of first- and second-hand accounts, NUREMBERG tells the stories behind the legal, political and personal struggles which complicated this revolutionary exercise in international jurisprudence. You can find previous episodes of our Nuremberg series here.
NUREMBERG PART 5
In the days after Jackson’s soaring opening statement and the screening of Nazi Concentration Camps, the IMT proceedings threaten to slip into a predictable pattern. American author John Dos Passos, reporting for LIFE magazine, captures what is quickly becoming a daily, almost familiar scenario.
DOS PASSOS: THE PRISONERS ARE ALREADY THERE, SITTING IN TWO ROWS UNDER A RANK OF YOUNG AMERICAN GUARDS. THE GUARDS STAND STILL AGAINST THE WALL WITH THE SERIOUS FACES OF A HIGH-SCHOOL BASKETBALL TEAM WAITING TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED. UNDER THEM, CRUMPLED AND TORN BY DEFEAT, ARE THE FACES THAT GLARED FOR YEARS FROM THE FRONT PAGES OF THE WORLD. THERE IS GOERING IN A PEARL-GRAY DOUBLE-BREASTED UNIFORM WITH BRASS BUTTONS AND THAT WIZENED LOOK OF A LEAKY BALLOON OF A FAT MAN WHO HAS LOST A GREAT DEAL OF WEIGHT. HESS’S FACE HAS FALLEN AWAY TILL IT IS NOTHING BUT A PINCHED NOSE AND HOLLOW EYES AND CHINLESS MOUTH. RIBBENTROP IN DARK GLASSES HAS THE UNEASY LOOK OF A DEFAULTING BANK CASHIER. STREICHER IS A HORRIBLE CARTOON OF A FOXY GRANDPA. FUNK IS A LITTLE, ROUND, SALLOW MAN WITH HANGING BLOODHOUND JOWLS. SCHACHT STARES OUT LIKE AN ANGRY WALRUS…. EXCEPT FOR HESS, WHO SLUMPS ON THE BENCH ALMOST IN A COMA, THE PRISONERS HAVE AN EASY, EXPECTANT LOOK, AS IF THEY HAD COME TO SEE THE PLAY RATHER THAN TO ACT IN IT.
Rudolf Hess is the outlier here, the great unknown. With the exception of Hermann Goering, no other defendant fascinates press and public like Hess, longtime Hitler intimate and once the Deputy Leader of the Nazi Party and third most powerful man in Germany. Seated in the dock’s front row beside Goering, Hess’s controversial backstory and eccentric behavior are the source of endless gossip and speculation. Is he as mentally unstable as he appears, or is he faking to dodge punishment? Hess is a troubling enigma for the Tribunal prosecutors, a puzzle that they are determined to solve. In this episode, Crime Story retraces Hess’s unusual journey from the corridors of power to a cramped cell in Nuremberg’s Palace of Justice complex.
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Hess had been Hitler’s boon companion since the early 1920s, a key member of his trusted inner circle. He proudly bore a scar from a head injury he sustained when he stepped in front of a beer mug hurled at Hitler during a brawl. Together with Goering, Hess was at Hitler’s side during the 1921 Beer Hall Putsch, the formative event in the rise of the Nazi Party, and he served 18 months in Landesberg Prison alongside the Führer, regularly conferring with him during the composition of Mein Kampf. The bond between the two men was so close, they referred to each other using the familiar “du,” highly unusual for Hitler. In 1925, Hess was appointed Hitler’s private secretary, and he would go on to accumulate more official titles and responsibilities including Nazi party leader, Cabinet Secretary, Reichstag and Defense Council member and Hitler’s principal hype-man at the Party rallies in Nuremberg. Finally, in 1939, Hitler declared Hess the second-in-line to succeed him as Führer, after Goering. As Hess’s biographers summarize, “[Hess’s] position became extremely powerful, if diffuse…. To list the decrees the wording of which Hess either supervised or approved prior to signing them on Hitler’s behalf would be to trace the whole day-to-day history of the institution of Nazi tyranny down to the smallest details.”
By 1941, however, Hess’s unique position in the Nazi hierarchy is being undermined by his own Chief of Cabinet, Martin Bormann. “He let Bormann virtually supplant him,” write historians Roger Manvell and Heinrich Fraenkel, “and [unlike Bormann] refrained from sitting about at Berchtesgaden in order to be ready to listen to Hitler’s endless rambling into the small hours of the night.” As Bormann burrows deeper into the Führer’s confidence, Hess finds himself slowly pushed into a sort of internal exile. This is the context for Hess’s legendary “special mission” to Scotland.
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On May 10, 1941, the 46-year old Hess flies a specially-modified Messerschmitt ME110 from Augsburg across the North Sea to the far west coast of Scotland, where he bails out before the aircraft, fuel spent, crashes in a field. With Hitler poised to invade the Soviet Union, Hess is determined to sue for a separate peace with the British in order to avoid a potentially disastrous two-front conflict. Whether Hitler approves, or even has knowledge of, Hess’ peace mission is a hotly debated topic even to this day. Was it an officially sanctioned effort to establish back-channel communications with the British Government or a desperate piece of amateur, ad hoc diplomacy? Hess hopes to contact the Duke of Hamilton, who he had met at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin and mistakenly assumes is a close confidante of Prime Minister Winston Churchill. What Hess soon learns is that he has crashed some thirty miles away from his intended destination, the Duke’s mansion at Dungavel Hill. Via official press statements Hitler washes his hands of Hess, blaming his quixotic mission on hallucinations caused by mental illness. To make matters worse, Churchill considers him not an official emissary from the Nazi regime but a common prisoner of war. Hess’s peace mission is an unmitigated failure.
His hopes of initiating high-level peace negotiations dashed, Hess is quickly taken into custody and over the course of ensuing months is shuttled between several detention facilities, including the Tower of London and Mytchett Place, a Victorian mansion in Hampshire. It is at Mytchett that Hess begins to manifest what attending British psychiatrists label a persecution complex, convinced that his captors are conspiring to poison him. He complains repeatedly about stomach cramps (ostensibly caused by the poison), the incessant noise of a local rail line, and fatigue. Hess’s British captors are alternately skeptical of and sympathetic to Hess’s mental turmoil. Teams of doctors observe, interrogate, and interview the disgraced Deputy Führer, making him, in the words of his biographers, “very probably… the most closely observed psychiatric ‘patient’ of modern times.” Compounding matters, Hess also develops a mysterious case of amnesia. Hess describes his intermittent memory lapses in a January 15, 1944 letter to his wife.
HESS: SINCE, SOONER OR LATER, YOU WILL NOTICE IT OR FIND OUT ABOUT IT, I MAY AS WELL TELL YOU: I HAVE COMPLETELY LOST MY MEMORY. THE WHOLE OF THE PAST SWIMS IN FRONT OF MY MIND ENVELOPED IN A GREY MIST. I CANNOT RECOLLECT EVEN THE MOST ORDINARY THINGS. THE REASON FOR IT I DO NOT KNOW. THE DOCTOR GAVE ME A LENGTHY EXPLANATION, BUT I HAVE ALREADY FORGOTTEN WHAT IT WAS. HE ASSURED ME, HOWEVER, THAT ALL WOULD BE WELL AGAIN. I TRUST HE IS RIGHT.
Abandoned by Hitler, disdained by the British, disoriented and severely depressed, Hess attempts suicide twice, once by stabbing himself in the chest with a breadknife. On June 25, 1942 Hess is remanded to Maindiff Court Hospital in Abergavenny, Wales, where he will remain under psychiatric observation until he is transferred to Nuremberg on October 8, 1945.
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Hess arrives in Nuremberg with both his loyalty to the Führer and his mental stability under suspicion. Almost immediately, he appears to offer a demonstration of his fidelity to the Third Reich. As he’s escorted by Prison Governor Colonel Burton Andrus to an interview room, Hess spots Goering in the corridor. He stiffens and proudly offers him the Nazi salute. Andrus is indignant.
ANDRUS: I TOLD HESS: “DO NOT SALUTE LIKE THAT AGAIN! IT WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. IN THIS PRISON, IT IS A VULGAR GESTURE.”
[HESS] STARED BACK AT ME WITH HIS DEEP SET EYES. “THE NAZI SALUTE,” HE SAID EVENLY, “IS NOT VULGAR.”
As to his mental state, Jackson’s men waste no time gauging the extent of Hess’s alleged amnesia. On October 9, Colonel John Amen persuades Goering, von Papen and two other former associates to speak with Hess in the hopes of somehow jogging his memory. Amen, the US team’s chief interrogator and a former special prosecutor charged with investigating official corruption in Brooklyn, is not one to suffer fools gladly; he watches in frustration as his ruse to shake Hess out of his stupor runs aground. Goering also grows increasingly impatient as he grills Hess in what historians Ann and John Tusa call “a beautifully observed parody of an American interrogation.”
GOERING: DON’T YOU KNOW ME?
HESS: WHO ARE YOU?
GOERING: YOU OUGHT TO KNOW ME. WE HAVE BEEN TOGETHER FOR YEARS.
HESS: ….I HAVE LOST MY MEMORY FOR SOME TIME, ESPECIALLY NOW BEFORE THE TRIAL. IT IS TERRIBLE, AND THE DOCTOR TELLS ME THAT IT IS GOING TO COME BACK.
GOERING: DON’T YOU KNOW ME? YOU DON’T RECOGNIZE ME?
HESS: NOT PERSONALLY, BUT I REMEMBER YOUR NAME.
GOERING: BUT WE TALKED A LOT TOGETHER.
HESS: WE WERE TOGETHER; THAT MUST HAVE BEEN THE CASE. THAT MUST HAVE BEEN SO. AS THE DEPUTY OF THE FUEHRER ALL THE TIME IN THAT POSITION, I MUST HAVE MET THE OTHER HIGH PERSONALITIES LIKE YOU, BUT I CANNOT REMEMBER ANYONE, TO THE BEST OF MY WILL.
Finally, Goering throws up his hands, exasperated. “I have come to the end,” he grouses to Amen. “I cannot ask him any more.”
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Together with his co-defendants, Hess is served the indictment on October 19 and encouraged to retain counsel. He selects Dr. Gunther von Rohrscheidt of Berlin. We can only guess at the nature of their consultations but on November 7, 1945, von Rohrscheidt files a motion with the Tribunal requesting an examination of Hess by a “neutral expert” in order to assess whether his client is mentally competent and “capable of being tried.” In the motion, von Rohrscheidt is explicit about the second point, writing that in his opinion, “The defendant is not in a position to give his Counsel any information whatsoever regarding the crimes imputed to him in the Indictment.” In other words, Hess is incapable of participating in his own defense. In response to the motion, the Tribunal designates a commission of seven distinguished Allied academics and clinicians to examine Hess — the British contingent includes Lord Moran, Winston Churchill’s personal physician.
Von Rohrscheidt’s motion also kicks the Americans into yet another clumsy attempt to test Hess’s memory. On November 8, Hess is seated in a courthouse projection room for a private screening of the 1934 film, Party Day in Nuremberg. While the news reports are unclear, it is likely that the film screened was in fact Leni Riefenstahl’s iconic Triumph of the Will, which prominently features a young, energized Hess addressing the Nazi faithful at the 1934 Nuremberg rally. Also present at the screening are Robert Jackson, General “Wild Bill” Donovan, and a handful of observers. The New York Times reports that
HESS LEANED FORWARD AND HALF ROSE FROM HIS CHAIR. ALL EYES WERE ON HIM; HIS WERE INTENT ON THE SCREEN…. SUDDENLY, THE SHOW WAS OVER. ALMOST A FULL MINUTE OF ABSOLUTE SILENCE ELAPSED. COL. JOHN HARLAN AMEN, THE CHIEF INTERROGATOR, TURNED TO HESS. AS SOFTLY AS IF HE WERE SPEAKING TO A CHILD
AMEN: DO YOU REMEMBER?
HESS: I RECOGNIZED HITLER AND GOERING. I RECOGNIZED THE OTHERS, BUT ONLY BECAUSE I HEARD THEIR NAMES MENTIONED AND HAVE SEEN THEIR NAMES ON CELL BLOCKS IN THIS JAIL.
AMEN: DON’T YOU REMEMBER BEING THERE?
HESS: I DON’T REMEMBER. I MUST HAVE BEEN THERE BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY I WAS THERE. BUT I DON’T REMEMBER.
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The Allied medical experts file their separate but parallel reports in the days leading up to the Tribunal’s opening, concluding that Hess suffers from a form of hysteria manifesting as an “amnesiac symptom” which all expect to eventually clear. Hess, they concur, is “not insane in the strictest sense.” Interestingly, each report stresses that though the amnesia should not impinge on Hess’s understanding of the proceedings themselves, it will probably, as the Soviets put it, “interfere with his ability to conduct his defense and to understand details of the past which would appear as factual data.” In other words, the experts question whether Hess is capable of actively aiding in his own defense.
Like a dog with a bone, Amen persists in his non-scientific efforts to unlock Hess’s amnesia. On November 16, even as some of the psychiatric teams are busy filing their reports, the chief interrogator sits down with Hess and an interpreter, intent on uncovering inconsistencies in Hess’s account and tripping him up. Amen confronts Hess with two of his former secretaries; Hess claims that he does not recognize either one. Amen presses further and the listener can hear his irritation mounting as Hess parries every question and occasionally even talks past him, addressing the interpreter directly and referring to Amen as “the gentleman.” It’s a game of cat and mouse that Amen keeps losing. Midway through the session, Amen asks Hess if he considers Goering a criminal.
HESS: YES, BUT AN HONORABLE CRIMINAL, A WAR CRIMINAL.
AMEN: HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT KIND OF A CRIMINAL HE IS?
HESS: BECAUSE HE IS THE SAME TYPE OF CRIMINAL THAT I AM.
AMEN: BUT YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ELSE ABOUT HIM, DO YOU? YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW HE IS GOERING, DO YOU? THAT IS WHAT YOU TOLD THE [PSYCHIATRISTS] WHO WERE HERE YESTERDAY.
HESS: EVEN BY RAISING YOUR VOICE YOU CANNOT SAY THAT I DID NOT SAY YESTERDAY THAT I KNEW GOERING FROM THIS TIME, AND FROM THE FACT THAT I WALKED WITH HIM EVERY DAY.
AMEN: I AM ASKING YOU, HOW DO YOU KNOW HE IS NOT A CRIMINAL? HOW DO YOU KNOW HE ISN’T A PICKPOCKET OR A THIEF?
HESS: I ASSUME THE GENTLEMAN IS TRYING TO PROVOKE ME, BUT I CANNOT BE PROVOKED.
On Saturday, November 24, Tribunal President Sir Geoffrey Lawrence issues an order rejecting von Rohrscheidt’s motion to appoint a neutral expert to examine Hess. The same order identifies the seven physicians appointed by the Court to conduct the examinations, acknowledges receipt of their reports, and schedules arguments for the end of the next week.
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Sometime after 4 o’clock on Friday, November 30, the courtroom is cleared of all defendants except for Hess. His attorney, von Rohrscheidt, approaches the podium. Elegant in his judicial robes, he sets his earphones down atop his papers as he addresses the court in German.
VON ROHRSCHEIDT: MAY IT PLEASE THE TRIBUNAL, I AM SPEAKING AS COUNSEL FOR THE DEFENDANT RUDOLF HESS. IN THE PROCEEDINGS WHICH HAVE ALREADY BEEN OPENED AGAINST HESS, THE COURT IS TO DECIDE SOLELY THE QUESTION WHETHER THE DEFENDANT IS FIT OR UNFIT TO BE HEARD, AND FURTHER, WHETHER HE MIGHT EVEN BE CONSIDERED ENTIRELY IRRESPONSIBLE.
For over an hour, von Rohrscheidt hammers on the latter point, asserting that while his client may be deemed sane, his amnesia renders him incapable of assisting in his own defense. The attorney’s argument, even in translation, is both heartfelt and eloquent.
VON ROHRSCHEIDT: IN A TRIAL IN WHICH CHARGES BEING BROUGHT AGAINST THE DEFENDANT ARE SO GRAVE THAT THEY MIGHT ENTAIL THE DEATH PENALTY, IT SEEMS TO ME INCOMPATIBLE WITH REAL JUSTICE THAT THE DEFENDANT SHOULD ON ACCOUNT OF HIS IMPAIRED CONDITION, BE DEPRIVED OF THE RIGHTS GRANTED HIM UNDER ARTICLE 16 OF THE CHARTER. THIS ARTICLE OF THE CHARTER MAKES PROVISIONS FOR THE DEFENDANT’S OWN DEFENSE, FOR THE OPPORTUNITY OF GIVING EVIDENCE PERSONALLY, AND FOR THE POSSIBILITY OF CROSS-EXAMINING EVERY WITNESS CALLED BY THE PROSECUTION. ALL THIS IS OF SUCH GREAT IMPORTANCE FOR THE DEFENSE, THAT EXCLUSION FROM ANY OF THESE RIGHTS WOULD, IN MY OPINION, CONSTITUTE A GRAVE INJUSTICE TO THE DEFENDANT.
Soviet Chief Prosecutor General R. A. Rudenko offers the first counter-argument. According to Associate US Trial Counsel Telford Taylor, the chief prosecutors had met as a group the previous day, November 29, and “unanimously agreed that they would take the position that Hess should be tried.” Rudenko admits as much.
RUDENKO: FIRST OF ALL, WE DO NOT QUESTION OR DOUBT THE FINDINGS OF THE COMMISSION. WE CONSIDER THAT THE DEFENDANT, RUDOLF HESS, IS PERFECTLY ABLE TO STAND HIS TRIAL. THIS IS THE UNANIMOUS OPINION OF THE CHIEF PROSECUTORS. I CONSIDER THAT THE FINDINGS OF THE EXAMINATIONS BY THE EXPERTS ARE QUITE SUFFICIENT TO DECLARE HESS SANE- AND ABLE TO STAND HIS TRIAL. WE THEREFORE REQUEST THE TRIBUNAL TO MAKE THE REQUISITE DECISION THIS VERY DAY.
Speaking on behalf of the UK, the US and France, British Chief Prosecutor Sir David Maxwell Fyfe expands on Rudenko’s basic premise, drawing on English jurisprudence to declare that “It has never… to my knowledge, been held to be a bar either to trial or punishment, that a person who comprehends the charge and the evidence has not got a memory as to what happened at the time.” Hess, he submits, should be tried. And while the opinion of all four prosecution teams already has been aired, Jackson nevertheless approaches the podium for final comments. Unusual for the Chief Prosecutor, he is hostile, his reliable eloquence dripping with sarcasm.
JACKSON: [RUDOLF HESS] HAS REFUSED EVERY SIMPLE TREATMENT THAT HAS BEEN SUGGESTED. HE HAS REFUSED TO SUBMIT TO THE ORDINARY THINGS THAT WE SUBMIT TO EVERY DAY – BLOOD TESTS, EXAMINATIONS – AND SAYS HE WILL SUBMIT TO NOTHING UNTIL AFTER THE TRIAL. THE MEDICATION WHICH WAS SUGGESTED TO BRING HIM OUT OF THIS HYSTERICAL SITUATION – EVERY PSYCHIATRIST AGREES THAT THIS IS SIMPLY AN HYSTERICAL SITUATION IF IT IS GENUINE AT ALL – WAS THE USE OF INTRAVENOUS DRUGS OF THE BARBITAL SERIES… THE ORDINARY SORT OF SEDATIVE THAT YOU PERHAPS TAKE ON A SLEEPLESS NIGHT. WE DID NOT DARE ADMINISTER THAT, TO BE PERFECTLY CANDID, AGAINST HIS OBJECTION, BECAUSE WE FELT IF THAT, HOWEVER HARMLESS – AND IN OVER A THOUSAND CASES OBSERVED BY [TRIBUNAL PSYCHIATRIST] MAJOR KELLY THERE HAVE BEEN NO ILL EFFECTS…WE FELT THAT IF HE SHOULD BE STRUCK BY LIGHTNING A MONTH AFTERWARD IT WOULD STILL BE CHARGED THAT SOMETHING THAT WE HAD DONE HAD CAUSED HIS DEATH; AND WE DID NOT DESIRE TO IMPOSE ANY SUCH TREATMENT UPON HIM.
BUT I RESPECTFULLY SUGGEST THAT A MAN CANNOT STAND AT THE BAR OF THE COURT AND ASSERT THAT HIS AMNESIA IS A DEFENSE TO HIS BEING TRIED, AND AT THE SAME TIME REFUSE THE SIMPLE MEDICAL EXPEDIENTS WHICH ALL AGREE MIGHT BE USEFUL. HE IS IN THE VOLUNTEER CLASS WITH HIS AMNESIA…
As von Rohrscheidt launches into his rebuttal, Hess becomes increasingly agitated. Airey Neave captures the moment.
NEAVE: I NOTICED THAT HESS WAS BECOMING RESTLESS…. HE ROSE TO HIS FEET AND ASKED TO BE ALLOWED TO MAKE A STATEMENT.
According to New York Times reporter Tania Long, Hess starts towards the podium, but is stopped by three white-helmeted guards. A microphone is brought to him and he pulls a prepared statement from his jacket pocket.
Airey Neave again sets the mood of the room.
NEAVE: THE FEW WORDS HE SPOKE WERE AMONG THE MOST FASCINATING IN THE TRIAL. HE SPOKE WITH CONSIDERABLE DIGNITY AND DRAMATIC EFFECT.
HESS: MR. PRESIDENT, I WOULD LIKE TO SAY THIS. AT THE BEGINNING OF THE PROCEEDINGS THIS AFTERNOON I GAVE MY DEFENSE COUNSEL A NOTE SAYING THAT I THOUGHT THE PROCEEDINGS COULD BE SHORTENED IF I WOULD BE ALLOWED TO SPEAK. I WISH TO SAY THE FOLLOWING:
IN ORDER TO FORESTALL THE POSSIBILITY OF MY BEING PRONOUNCED INCAPABLE OF PLEADING, IN SPITE OF MY WILLINGNESS TO TAKE PART IN THE PROCEEDINGS AND TO HEAR THE VERDICT ALONGSIDE MY COMRADES, I WOULD LIKE TO MAKE THE FOLLOWING DECLARATION BEFORE THE TRIBUNAL, ALTHOUGH, ORIGINALLY, I INTENDED TO MAKE IT DURING A LATER STAGE OF THE TRIAL:
HENCEFORTH MY MEMORY WILL AGAIN RESPOND TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD. THE REASONS FOR SIMULATING LOSS OF MEMORY WERE OF A TACTICAL NATURE. ONLY MY ABILITY TO CONCENTRATE IS, IN FACT, SOMEWHAT REDUCED. BUT MY CAPACITY TO FOLLOW THE TRIAL, TO DEFEND MYSELF, TO PUT QUESTIONS TO WITNESSES, OR TO ANSWER QUESTIONS MYSELF IS NOT AFFECTED THEREBY.
I EMPHASIZE THAT I BEAR FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR EVERYTHING THAT I DID, SIGNED OR CO-SIGNED. MY FUNDAMENTAL ATTITUDE THAT THE TRIBUNAL IS NOT COMPETENT, IS NOT AFFECTED BY THE STATEMENT I HAVE JUST MADE. I ALSO SIMULATED LOSS OF MEMORY IN CONSULTATIONS WITH MY OFFICIALLY APPOINTED DEFENSE COUNSEL. HE HAS, THEREFORE, REPRESENTED IT IN GOOD FAITH.
According to Telford Taylor, “There was dead silence, then a ripple of laughter and an outward rush of the press. [Tribunal President] Lawrence announced that the session was adjourned and the Tribunal retired.” Back in his cell, Hess tells his attorney, “I feel unburdened – I feel better.” The next day, December 1, the Tribunal denies von Rohrscheidt’s motion and rules that Hess is capable of standing trial.
The denouement to the topsy-turvy Hess case is provided by Hermann Goering, who learns about Hess’s declaration from prison psychologist Gustave Gilbert the next morning.
GILBERT: GOERING WAS AT FIRST INCREDULOUS, BUT THEN ROARED WITH DELIGHT AT WHAT HE TOOK TO BE HESS’S JOKE ON THE COURT AND THE PSYCHIATRISTS. HE COULD NOT BE SURE WHETHER THE RESTORATION OF MEMORY WAS GENUINE, BUT HE JUST WISHED HE COULD HAVE BEEN THERE TO ENJOY THE SCENE AND WATCH THE JUDGES’ AND PROSECUTORS’ FACES.
In the next installment of Crime Story’s Nuremberg series, we will shift focus from the US prosecutors and individual Nazi defendants to the other three prosecution teams – the British, the Soviets, and the French. Each group had its own working dynamics and personality clashes which inevitably added to the drama and pathos of the Nuremberg proceedings.