File:Hess with his wife Margarethe and daughter Ursula in the early Thirties.jpg

He had petitioned Hitler in June of 1936 asking for an exception to be made for him and his daughter under the race laws. In his letter Hess said: 'For us, it is a kind of spiritual death to now be branded as Jews and exposed to general contempt.' Hess ended up as a slave labourer, building barracks. This time he escaped extermination because of his 'privileged miscegenated marriage' to Margarete Hess, a Protestant. His sister Berta was gassed at Auschwitz, wrongly believing that the protection afforded to her brother extended to her. Hess died in Frankfurt after a successful career in post-war West Germany on September 14, 1983. Hess moved his family to Bolzano, Italy in October 1937, but was forced to return in 1939. Hoping that his connections to Hitler would keep him safe, he moved his family to a remote Bavarian village in mid-1940. A copy of the letter Himmler sent to the Gestapo in Dusseldorf was given to him. But in late June 1941, Hess was summoned to appear before the SS in Munich. When he submitted his letter of protection it was taken from him and he was told it had been revoked in May of 1941, and that he was now 'a Jew like any other'.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2169131/Astonishing-letter-reveals-Hitler-ordered-Gestapo-leave-WW1-commander-alone.html#ixzz3BpFY703J