Ernst Moritz Hess

Who is Ernst Moritz Hess?

Ernst Moritz Hess was a German who was of part-Jewish ancestry who served in the Imperial German Army during the First World War. He commanded the company of the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16 in which Adolf Hitler served during the war. During the inter-war period he served as a judge before being forced out of office after the passing of the Nuremberg Laws by the Nazis in 1935, as he was classified as a "full-blooded Jew" due to his mother being Jewish, even though he was baptised a Protestant.

He emigrated with his family to Bolzano in Italy to escape Nazi persecution but was eventually forced to move back to Germany, though as a former war comrade of Hitler's he was granted protection and some privileges for a while. However, his privileges were removed in 1941 and he spent the rest of the war as a forced labourer; his sister died in Auschwitz but his mother managed to escape to Switzerland in 1945. Following the war he began a new career in railway management and was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his services to the Deutsche Bundesbahn.