The bones of Adolph Hitler's deputy Rudolph Hess have been exhumed and his grave in the German village Wunsiedel destroyed after it became a pilgrimage for Neo-Nazis, German media report.

Early Wednesday morning, Hess's grave was destroyed after his remains were exhumed, the Suddeutsche Zeitung reported. His remains are to be buried at sea.

Hess's grave has been a place of pilgrimage for neo-Nazis since 1987, and every year around the time of his death they would make the pilgrimage to the town in northeast Bavaria to lay wreaths at his grave, which was engraved with the phrase, "I dared," the newspaper reported.

The town had banned the parades, but then a change in the law made them possible again.

Hess was Hitler's deputy in the Nazi Party during the 1930s and '40s. In 1941, he flew to the U.K. in an effort to broker peace with the country, but was instead arrested. He was one of the defendants at the Nuremberg trials in 1946 and was convicted of crimes against peace and conspiracy with other German leaders to commit crimes.

He killed himself on Aug. 17, 1987, and was buried in a Hess family grave plot in Wunsiedel.