Rudolph Hess's Nuremberg war crimes trial headphones

Rudolf Hess was born as Walter Richard Rudolf Hess on April 26, 1894, in Alexandria, Egypt. His father was a merchant. Hess served in the German Army in World War I (1914-1918) He then studied at the University of Munich, where he became an advocate of extremist German nationalism. Hess joined the Nazi (National Socialist) Party in 1920. He quickly became a close friend and confidant of Adolf Hitler. He participated in the 1923 Munich Beer Hall Putsch where the Nazis attempted to overthrow the Weimar government. He fled to Austria but returned to join Hitler in Landsberg Prison, where he recorded and helped draft Mein Kampf. Hess became Hitler's personal secretary and worked to centralize the Nazi Party structure. On January 1, 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. In April, Hess was made deputy fuhrer of the Party and, in December, he became a cabinet member. In 1939, Hitler made Hess second to Goering in the line of succession. On May 10, 1941, Hess secretly flew to Scotland with the intent of making peace between Germany and Great Britain. He was arrested and jailed by the British as a prisoner of war. Hitler accused him of suffering from pacifist delusions. On May 7, 1945, the war ended with Germany's surrender. The United Nations soon convened an International Military Tribunal (IMT) to prosecute those responsible for violence to the civilian population, evidenced by the Holocaust. The IMT was convened by eighteen Allied Nations and conducted by the four major powers, the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. Hess was one of 22 defendants charged with crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and conspiracy to commit these crimes, for the first trial, the Major German War Criminals Trial. It began in Nuremberg on November 20, 1945. Hess feigned amnesia and did not take the stand. The verdicts were delivered on October 1, 1946. Twelve defendants were sentenced to death. Hess was sentenced to life imprisonment and confined in Spandau prison in Berlin. From 1966 on, he was the only inmate. Hess, 93, committed suicide on August 17, 1987, in Spandau.

The headphones were donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1996 by the IBM Corporation.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the IBM Corporation