Last member of Hitler’s inner circle dies in prison
On this day, Aug. 17, in 1987, Rudolf Hess, the last surviving member of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s inner circle, was found strangled to death in an apparent suicide.
Hess died in Spandau Prison in Berlin. He was 93.
Hess was an early follower of Hitler and participated in his failed “Beer Hall Putsch” in 1923.
He was arrested by the British in May 1941 and was held in Britain until the end of World War II.
Hess was tried in Nuremberg after the war and was sentenced to life in prison.
He was found strangled to death in a cabin at the prison’s exercise yard. He choked himself to death with an electrical cord.
