Top Nazi Rudolf Hess exhumed from 'pilgrimage' grave

The grave holding the remains of Adolf Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess has been destroyed to stop it being used as a pilgrimage site by neo-Nazis.

Hess's bones were exhumed at the graveyard in the town of Wunsiedel, southern Germany, early on Wednesday.

The remains will be cremated and then scattered at sea.

Hess was captured after flying to Britain in 1941 and sentenced to life in prison. He killed himself in a Berlin jail in 1987 at the age of 93.

As he requested in his will, he was buried in the small Bavarian town of Wunsiedel, where his family had a holiday home and where his parents were already interred.

The local Lutheran church which supervises the cemetery gave its permission for the burial at the time, ruling that the wishes of the deceased could not be ignored, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reports.

But they and local people have since become concerned by the number of far-right groups visiting the grave.

Each year on the anniversary of his death, neo-Nazis have attempted to stage a march to the cemetery, saluting the grave with its epitaph "I dared", and laying floral wreaths.

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Rudolph Hess

• 1894: Born in Alexandria, Egypt
• 1914-18: Serves during WWI, ending war as lieutenant
• 1920: Joins Hitler's fledgling Nazi party
• 1923: Imprisoned with Hitler and becomes his secretary
• 1933: Becomes Hitler's deputy after his rise to power
• 1941: Seeks peace with Britain by flying solo to Scotland. Detained in Britain
• 1946: Convicted of crimes against peace at Nuremberg Trials and given life sentence
• 1947: Transferred to Spandau Prison in Berlin
• 1987: Found hanged

A 2005 court order banning such gatherings had little effect so the church decided to terminate the family's lease on the grave as of October 2011.

A granddaughter of Hess objected to the decision, the paper reports.

She filed a lawsuit in an attempt to prevent it going ahead, but was eventually persuaded by the parish council to drop the case and allow the exhumation to go ahead.

Hess was one of Hitler's closest aides. But in 1941 he made a solo flight to Scotland, where his plane crash-landed, in an apparently unauthorised peace mission which was denounced by the fuhrer.

He was imprisoned by the British for the duration of the war.

At the Nuremberg Trials in 1946, Hess was cleared of war crimes and crimes against humanity but convicted of crimes against peace and jailed for life.

He spent 40 years in Spandau Prison in Berlin.

He was the last remaining inmate at the prison when he was found hanged there in August 1987

Neo-Nazis attempted to hold rallies at the grave on the anniversary of Hess's death

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