33 Facts About Dietrich Klagges

Dietrich Klagges is responsible for giving Adolf Hitler citizenship of Germany in 1932, making him eligible to run for political office.

Dietrich Klagges underwent training as a volksschule teacher at the teaching seminary at Soest.

Dietrich Klagges enrolled for military service in the 15th Infantry Regiment, headquartered in Minden, but was injured and discharged with a partial disability.

Dietrich Klagges then worked as a teacher in Harpen near Bochum.

Dietrich Klagges saw action on the western front but was badly wounded with a gunshot wound to the right thigh on 1 April 1915.

Dietrich Klagges saw no further action and, after release from the hospital, was discharged on 31 July 1916.

Dietrich Klagges returned to teaching, this time in Wilster in Holstein.

Dietrich Klagges soon left it, eventually joining the NSDAP on 13 June 1925.

From 1921 on, Dietrich Klagges was busy writing volkisch, antidemocratic, and anti-Semitic writings which appeared in right-wing newspapers and the like.

Dietrich Klagges wrote for example for Die volkische Schule or Deutschlands Erneuerung and was himself the publisher of the magazine Nordlicht.

On 1 January 1931 Dietrich Klagges was appointed Regierungsrat, a lower ranked government official, in the Education Ministry by Anton Franzen, the Nazi Interior and Education Minister of the Brunswick Free State.

Shortly thereafter, in 1932, Dietrich Klagges became a member of the Reichstag.

Dietrich Klagges would remain a Reichstag deputy until the end of the Nazi regime, first from electoral constituency 15, East Hanover, and after November 1933 from electoral constituency 16, South Hanover-Brunswick.

Already in 1931, two years before the Nazis seized power, Dietrich Klagges imposed professional bans against Social Democrats and Jews in the civil service, which struck, among others, many teaching staff at the Braunschweig Technical College.

Dietrich Klagges was made a Regierungsrat at the Braunschweig State Culture and Surveying Office, stationed as a staff member of the Braunschweig legation in Berlin.

Dietrich Klagges first tried to procure for Hitler an associate professorship in the made-up discipline of "Politics and Organic Sociology" at the Braunschweig Technical College.

Henceforth, Dietrich Klagges was to submit all plans to Reichsstatthalter Wilhelm Loeper in Dessau as well as Reichsminister Hanns Kerrl for approval, thereby being degraded to provincial politician and thrust off the stage of higher NSDAP politics.

On 6 May 1933, Dietrich Klagges was appointed Ministerprasident of the Free State of Brunswick by Reichsstatthalter Wilhelm Loeper.

Dietrich Klagges's formulated goal was the creation of a Nazi model state.

On 2 October 1933, Dietrich Klagges was named to Hans Frank's Academy for German Law at its inaugural meeting.

Dietrich Klagges joined the Schutzstaffel on 27 January 1934 with the rank of SS-Gruppenfuhrer and was posted to the staff of the 49th Standarte.

Dietrich Klagges found support for his idea among Braunschweig educators, from the middle class, the chamber of commerce, and even the Protestant Church.

Dietrich Klagges further developed Braunschweig's infrastructure by connecting it to the newly built Autobahn and the Mittellandkanal.

Dietrich Klagges was therefore responsible for at least 25 Nazi regime opponents' deaths.

Dietrich Klagges was forced to sign a document declaring that he had given up his mandate.

Dietrich Klagges stayed on as mayor until 17 December 1948.

Jasper was, at Dietrich Klagges's instigation, taken into "protective custody" on pretences on 17 March 1933, and taken to the AOK Building, where he was severely beaten in an attempt to force him to resign his political mandate, which Jasper would not do.

Dietrich Klagges was sentenced for high treason but was released early, in 1937, for medical reasons.

Dietrich Klagges died as a result of mishandling suffered at the Gestapo's hands.

On 12 April 1945, Dietrich Klagges was taken prisoner by the American troops thronging into Braunschweig, and in 1946, a military court in Bielefeld sentenced him to six years in labour prison for his crimes.

The new General Prosecutor Fritz Bauer, who had come to Braunschweig in 1950, and who was later active in the 1960s, likewise as a prosecutor, in the Auschwitz Trials, contributed to a great extent to getting Dietrich Klagges sentenced in a normal criminal trial on 4 April 1950 to a life term in labour prison for crimes committed by him as Brunswick State Minister and Premier, including, among others, the Rieseberg murders.

In 1955, Dietrich Klagges's wife applied for her husband's early release from prison without further probationary conditions.

In 1970, the Bundesverwaltungsgericht decided that Dietrich Klagges had to receive an amount accumulated from his pension as premier, approximately DM 100,000.