Hess Letter Says He’s in Severe Pain and Unable to Sleep
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MUNICH, West Germany — Hitler’s former deputy, 92-year-old Rudolf Hess, has told his family he is in severe pain because of a hernia and cannot sleep at night, according to excerpts from a letter published Monday.
Hess, the sole inmate of West Berlin’s grim Spandau prison, complained of searing stomach and bowel pains.
Extracts from the letter to his family in Bavaria were published by the Munich magazine Quick. It gave no details of how it obtained the text.
Hess was jailed for life by the victorious Allies after World War II for crimes against peace and plotting a war of aggression. He spent a week in a British military hospital for circulation problems in early July but was returned to Spandau after his condition was pronounced satisfactory.
Unanimous approval from the four World War II Allies is needed to pardon Hess, but the Soviet Union has always blocked appeals for his release.
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