1. Luitpold Steidle was a German army officer and an East German politician.
18 Facts About Luitpold Steidle
1. 2.
Luitpold Steidle was described by Der Spiegel in 1947 as a "refreshingly open-minded man with a narrow distinctive face, in his late 40s".
3.
In 1898 Luitpold Steidle was born into a Catholic family in Ulm, in the Kingdom of Wurttemberg, which less than thirty years earlier had been incorporated into the German Empire.
4.
Luitpold Steidle attended secondary school in Munich before joining the army in 1915.
5.
Luitpold Steidle immediately resumed his education, from 1918 attending what was then known as the Technical High School in Munich, where he studied Agricultural sciences.
6.
Luitpold Steidle learned farming at Hohenpolding and at Grasselfing, both located a short distance to the west of Munich.
7.
On 1 May 1933 Steidle joined the Nazi Party which had seized power in January 1933 and spent the intervening months consolidating its own power and banning other political parties in Germany.
8.
Luitpold Steidle lost his job in 1933 and a period of unemployment followed.
9.
Luitpold Steidle worked briefly as an insurance agent during 1934 before rejoining the army at the end of the year, recovering immediately the officer's rank that he had held when decommissioned in 1918.
10.
Luitpold Steidle was promoted to the rank of colonel in 1942 and sent to fight on the Russian front as a regimental commander.
11.
Luitpold Steidle survived, but was taken prisoner of war by the Soviets.
12.
Till the end of the war, during his time in Soviet detention, Luitpold Steidle served as representative of the National Committee for a Free Germany.
13.
Luitpold Steidle remained a member of the till 1971.
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Luitpold Steidle held office from 1949 till 1950 as Minister for Work and Health, and from 1950 till 1958 as Minister for Health.
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Luitpold Steidle provided advice on the creation of the National People's Army, established in 1956.
16.
From 1960 till his retirement in 1969 Luitpold Steidle was mayor of Weimar, where afterwards he continued to live.
17.
Luitpold Steidle received the usual awards conferred on politicians by states with that use Honours Systems.
18.
Luitpold Steidle was, in 1956, made an Honorary Senator of Greifswald University and, in 1972, an Honorary Member of the Presidential Council of the Kulturbund.