Hess’ Health Failing, Son Says

WEST BERLIN — The son of former Hitler deputy Rudolf Hess said that his ailing 92-year-old father did not recognize him during a brief hospital visit today and that his condition is deteriorating.

“He doesn’t know what he is saying and what is happening around him,” Wolf Ruediger Hess told reporters after he visited his father at a British military hospital. He said it was the first time his father did not know him. “Obviously, the pneumonia is more serious than they considered, because his whole condition is deteriorating,” he said.