Nazi Leader’s Grandson Fined Over Online Quotes

MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) — A grandson of Adolf Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess was fined for public incitement on Thursday after putting remarks by Hess on the Internet.

Hess was quoted as saying there were no gas chambers in Dachau concentration camp near Munich during the Second World War and that the Americans installed them afterwards to scare tourists, Munich district court said.

Wolf Andreas Hess, a 23-year-old student, had only been trying to assemble historical documentation about his grandfather, the defense counsel said.

The counsel said Hess was not trying to incite anyone, adding that he had paid attention in his history lessons and knew there was a Holocaust.

Hess was fined $1,184.

Beyond his grave in his Bavarian home town of Wunsiedel, Rudolf Hess remains a source of fascination for Germany’s small band of neo-Nazis who regard him as a martyr and believe he was murdered by his British [sic. American] captors.

Hitler dictated his book “Mein Kampf” to Hess while in prison in 1923-24.

Hess fell into Allied hands in 1941 after parachuting into Scotland in an apparent personal bid to broker peace with Britain.

He was tried as a war criminal and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was found dead in Berlin’s Spandau prison in 1987 at the age of 93 after spending 46 years in jail.