13. Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s Deputy
Rudolf Hess was at Hitler’s side during the failed 1923 Beer Hall Putsch and joined him in prison, where he helped him write Mein Kampf. For his loyalty, Hess was made Hitler’s deputy Fuhrer after the Nazis came to power in 1933, and he played an instrumental role in drafting the Nuremberg Laws that stripped Germany’s Jews of citizenship and civil rights. In 1941, Hess sensed that his influence over Hitler was waning, so he hatched a harebrained scheme to fly solo to Britain, and try to broker a peace. It came to nothing, and after the war, he was tried and convicted of war crimes and sentenced to life in prison, which lasted until he committed suicide in 1987.