Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess 'was killed by British to preserve wartime secrets'

Adolf Hitler's Nazi deputy Rudolf Hess was "murdered by British agents" to stop him spilling wartime secrets, it has been revealed.

According to a newly-released police report, Scotland Yard was given the names of British agents who allegedly murdered the Nazi Rudolf Hess in the infamous Spandau Prison but was advised by prosecutors not to pursue its investigations, the Independent reported.

Written two years after Hess's death in 1987, the classified document outlines a highly-sensitive inquiry into the claims of a British surgeon who had once treated Hitler's deputy that, rather than taking his own life, the elderly Nazi was killed on British orders to preserve wartime secrets.

Released under the Freedom of Information Act, the partially-redacted report by Detective Chief Superintendent Howard Jones revealed that the surgeon - Hugh Thomas - had supplied him with the names of two suspects provided by a "government employee" responsible for training secret agents.

Withheld for nearly 25 years, the report has been released by the Yard's counter-terrorism command following consultation with "other Government and foreign government departments".

The death of Hess in Berlin at the age of 93 after he apparently hung himself with a wire flex in a summer house in the grounds of Spandau has long been controversial with claims that he was too infirm to commit suicide and a farewell note to his family had in fact been written 20 years earlier.