Nurenburg, 1934-1945

Rudolf Hess crouched in the darkened auditorium, impassively listening to the Wagnerian crash of the talkie's sound track. Suddenly he half rose: before him on the screen was Rudolf Hess, Deputy Fuhrer of the Third Reich, in the center of the triumphant 1934 Nazi Party Congress. Next to him, Adolf Hitler capered with joy.

For a moment, Hess stared at Hess. The man in the newsreel, young and strapping, screamed "Sieg Heil!" The real man, haggard and old, sank back into his seat. Psychiatrists watched him closely.

The Nuernberg of 1934 faded from the screen and the lights of Nuernberg, 1945, went up. Colonel John Harlan Amen, who once helped Bill O'Dwyer clean up Brooklyn's Murder Inc., softly asked: "Do you remember? Hess tried to brush his hand against his eyes, but the handcuffs stopped him. Said he: "I must have been there ... I don't remember."

But he seemed to remember that he was one of the 23 Germans who stood indicted for high crimes against all mankind, and that he would go on trial with the rest unless he was proved insane.

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