
Ernst Hess, Adolf Hitler's company commander in WWI, who was, despite his Jewish roots, spared from the genocide unleashed by the Nazis
Some six million Jews - including Hess's sister - would be murdered in the Holocaust set in motion by Hitler. But because the German leader looked back on his experiences as a corporal in the war with pride and deep fondness, Hess was allowed to live.
Hitler would later renege on his protection agreement, but it saved Hess at a time when the round ups of German Jews were at their most fierce. The document was turned up by the recently opened Jewish Voice from Germany newspaper.
Hess came close to being deported after the Wannsee Conference of January 1942 - the meeting which set the mass murders in extermination camps in occupied Poland in motion - but was finally saved due to his marriage to a gentile.












Comment: