He was taken prisoner and eventually convicted of crimes against peace. He was still serving his life sentence at the time of his suicide in He was wounded several times during the war and was awarded the Iron Cross , 2nd Class, in Shortly before the war ended, Hess enrolled to train as an aviator, but he saw no action in that role. He left the armed forces in December with the rank of Leutnant der Reserve. In , Hess enrolled in the University of Munich , where he studied geopolitics under Karl Haushofer , a proponent of the concept of Lebensraum 'living space' , which became one of the pillars of Nazi ideology.
While serving a prison sentence for this attempted coup, he assisted Hitler with Mein Kampf , which became a foundation of the political platform of the Nazi Party. By the start of the war, Hess was sidelined from most important decisions, and many in Hitler's inner circle thought him to be mad.
On 10 May , Hess made a solo flight to Scotland , where he hoped to arrange peace talks with the Duke of Hamilton , whom he believed to be a prominent opponent of the British government's war policy. The British authorities arrested Hess immediately on his arrival and held him in custody until the end of the war, when he was returned to Germany to stand trial at the Nuremberg trials of major war criminals.
During much of his trial, Hess claimed to be suffering from amnesia, but he later admitted to the court that this had been a ruse. The court convicted him of crimes against peace and of conspiracy with other German leaders to commit crimes. He served a life sentence in Spandau Prison ; the Soviet Union blocked repeated attempts by family members and prominent politicians to procure his early release.
While still in custody as the only prisoner in Spandau, he hanged himself in at the age of After his death, the prison was demolished to prevent it from becoming a neo-Nazi shrine. His grave, bearing the inscription "Ich hab's gewagt" I dared it , became a site of regular pilgrimage and demonstrations by Neo-Nazis.
