The publication of Hitler's second book, dictated in the summer of 1928, has helped to close the gap in our knowledge of National Socialism in the period between the reorganization of the party after Hitler's release from jail and the drive against the Young Plan in 1929. The letter from Rudolf Hess to Walter Hewel published in the following pages contributes substantial new insights to our picture of the National Socialist party in those years.

Walter Hewel had been an early follower of Hitler. Having carried a flag in the attempted putsch of November 1923, he was sentenced to jail and served some time in Landsberg prison. After considerable travel, including a longer stay in England, Hewel spent several years on a plantation in Java before returning to Germany in the 1930s. Eventually he became the foreign minister's permanent representative in Hitler's head-quarters; he was killed or committed suicide in early May of 1945. While in London in 1926–27, he sent several letters to his old friends Adolf Hitler and Rudolf Hess. The answer Hess wrote on March 30, 1927, gave Hewel a picture of the development of the party and of its views. Written frankly and clearly, the letter illustrates the complete triumph of Hitler's absolutist concept within the party. It also shows the wide-ranging foreign policy views discussed in the Nazi inner circle.