Adolf Hitler protected his Jewish former commanding officer

Before the letter Hess, a decorated war hero, had been beaten up by a Nazi
gang in 1936 and forced to flee to Italy for a number of years.

Although Hitler would lapse, the letter protected Hess at a time when
Germany’s Jews were beginning to feel the full wrath of a regime bent on
their destruction.

Hess’s ties to Hitler were replicated in continuing good relations with other
comrades-in-arms. Fritz Wiedemann, a former member of his unit, served as
Hitler’s personal adjutant from 1934 to 1939.

Through Wiedemann it appears Hess managed to get Hitler to allow him to
transfer his pension to Italy and free himself from a Nazi law that forced
Jews to carry the name Israel.

His high-level Nazi contacts also helped him a get a new passport in March
1939 that made no note of his Jewish classification.

However historians believe that the Hilter link had lost its utility by 1942.

As Jews across Europe were beginning to be dispatched to death camps in ever
greater numbers, Hess only escaped deportation through his marriage to a
German protestant.

It appears the Hess family became over-confident that its link to Hilter would
keep them alive. Berta, his sister, had told people she “enjoyed the
special protection of the Nazi party” but Adolf Eichmann, the logistic
mastermind of the Holocaust, personally signed her deportation order.

Berta was deported and died in Auschwitz. Hess’s mother, Elizabeth was also
deported but survived.

Speaking to the Jewish Voice Hess’s daughter Ursula, now 86, said her father
had few memories of Hitler other than that he had no friends in the
regiment.

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