Hitler Protected Jewish Vet of World War I from Persecution
Adolf Hitler allegedly help spared a Jewish World War I veteran from Nazi persecution according to a report by historian Susanne Maussa in a German Jewish newspaper Jewish Voice From Germany.
Report further states that Hitler, through a letter, ordered the genocide of all Europe's Jews but apparently wanted Ernst Hess, a judge, to be left alone because they had served in the same WWI unit and Hess had briefly been his commanding officer. The letter according to her was signed by a senior member of the SS paramilitary organization and dated August 19, 1940.
Hess, as what Maussa has written, eventually lost his special protection, and was made to work as a forced laborer from 1943 until the end of the war in 1945.
After the war he turned down an offer to return to the judiciary and instead worked for the federal railways. He died in 1983.
Other members of Hess' family didn't survive the Holocaust. His sister Berta was murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp, one of six million Jews killed under Hitler's rule.
The letter was found in official archives containing files that the Nazi secret police, or Gestapo, kept on Jewish lawyers and judges. Mauss said its authenticity is corroborated by other documents, including one owned by Hess' surviving daughter Ursula.
The paper's publisher, Rafael Seligmann, said that whether Hitler had helped protect Hess or not didn't change the Nazi leader's genocidal record.
Report further states that Hitler, through a letter, ordered the genocide of all Europe's Jews but apparently wanted Ernst Hess, a judge, to be left alone because they had served in the same WWI unit and Hess had briefly been his commanding officer. The letter according to her was signed by a senior member of the SS paramilitary organization and dated August 19, 1940.
Hess, as what Maussa has written, eventually lost his special protection, and was made to work as a forced laborer from 1943 until the end of the war in 1945.
After the war he turned down an offer to return to the judiciary and instead worked for the federal railways. He died in 1983.
Other members of Hess' family didn't survive the Holocaust. His sister Berta was murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp, one of six million Jews killed under Hitler's rule.
The letter was found in official archives containing files that the Nazi secret police, or Gestapo, kept on Jewish lawyers and judges. Mauss said its authenticity is corroborated by other documents, including one owned by Hess' surviving daughter Ursula.
The paper's publisher, Rafael Seligmann, said that whether Hitler had helped protect Hess or not didn't change the Nazi leader's genocidal record.
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