BERLIN — The bones of Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy, have been exhumed and will be disposed of because his grave in the small Bavarian town of Wunsiedel has become a pilgrimage site for neo-Nazis, the town’s mayor said in an interview on Thursday.

Karl-Willi Beck, 56, who has been mayor of Wunsiedel since 2002, said the cemetery administrators removed Hess’s remains and his gravestone early Wednesday. “It was the right thing to do,” Mr. Beck said.

He said the bones would be cremated and scattered over an undisclosed location at sea, but he gave no other details.

Hess was born in 1894 in Alexandria, Egypt, the son of a German importer. He was an infantryman and pilot for the German forces during World War I. Afterward he became caught up in nationalist politics. He joined the National Socialist Party in 1920 and became a confidant of Hitler, who dictated much of his book, “Mein Kampf,” to Hess when they were both imprisoned.