Walter Letsch

Walter Letsch as a witness at the Nuremberg trials.

Theodor Ernst Walter Letsch (* 1895 ; † 1965 ) was a German civil servant in the labor administration.

Life and activity

After attending school, Letsch studied economics at the University of Breslau from 1914 to 1922 . His studies were interrupted from 1914 to 1918 by participating in the First World War, in which he achieved the rank of lieutenant in the reserve.

From 1922 to 1928 letsch worked as an in-house counsel for various employers' associations in the construction industry in Wroclaw. He also completed his doctorate in economics at the University of Wroclaw in 1923.

From 1928 to 1934 Letsch held the post of head of the employment office in Waldenburg ( Lower Silesia ). Then he was used from 1934 to the end of 1935 as a consultant and department head at the State Labor Office for Silesia in Wroclaw. In 1936 he was transferred to the headquarters of the Reichsanstalt für Arbeitsvermittlung und Arbeitslosenversicherung in Berlin, where he was employed as a consultant in the employment agency department.

Letsch joined the NSDAP in 1933 . He was also a member of the SA reserve from 1933 to 1936 , most recently with the rank of Rottenführer.

On the occasion of the dissolution of the Reichsanstalt für Arbeitsvermittlung and its incorporation into the Reichsarbeitsministerium in 1939, Letsch was transferred to this ministry, where he was employed as a consultant in the department for unemployment placement and career advice. From 1943, Letsch - who had been a ministerial councilor since 1941 - was head of Section VIa. So he was in 1941 a. a. involved in the provision of workers for the construction of the Auschwitz plant. From April 1942, Department VI, to which Letsch's Section VIa belonged, was subordinate to Fritz Sauckel , the general agent for labor . In this context, he was responsible for the central organization of the distribution of workers recruited in Eastern Europe - often forcibly - and transported to Germany to certain areas within the Reich, working closely with the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Areas and the SS Main Office. As a result, he took part - together with Sauckel - in numerous meetings with Alfred Rosenberg and Gottlob Berger , which revolved around the deployment of Eastern workers.

After the Second World War Letsch was arrested by the Allies . In the course of the Nuremberg Trials, he was temporarily considered as a defendant in the trial against the Reich Ministries. In a report from February 1947, he said that he was an “extremely important witness, if not a potential defendant” (“an excellent witness, if not a potential defendant”) for the trial of Gottlob Berger because of the use of civilians and POWs should be considered as slave labor in Germany during the Second World War. By September 1947 at the latest, however, this was refrained from and he was no longer considered as a defendant. Ultimately, he was used in particular as a witness in the Krupp trial .

Fonts

German relative state socialism (1878-1918). An economic policy contribution to the relationship between state and economy . Breslau 1923 (dissertation).
The restrictions on changing jobs . In: Monthly Issues for Nazi Social Policy 1939, pp. 129ff.

The use of commercial foreign workers in Germany. in: Reichsarbeitsblatt No. 3/1941, pp. 42–45.

literature

Andrea Loew: German Reich and Protectorate September 1939 - September 1941 (= The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945 vol. 3). Oldenbourg, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-486-58524-7 , p. 236, note 3.

Web links

Digitized interrogation protocols from Walter Letsch at the Central Institute for Contemporary History

Remarks

^ IfZ: ZS Letsch, Bl. 5 : Report from February 25, 1947.
^ IfZ: ZS Walter Letsch, p. 73 : Report of the Evidence Division of the American Office of Chief of Counsel for War Crimes of September 30, 1947 ("[...] Letsch is no logner considered by the Ministries Division as a potential defendant [... ] ").
^ Eva Seeber: Forced Laborers in the Fascist War Economy. The deportation and exploitation of Polish citizens with special attention to the situation of workers from the so-called General Government, 1939–1945 . 1964, p. 72.

personal data
SURNAME	Letsch, Walter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Letsch, Ernst Walter (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German civil servant
DATE OF BIRTH	1895
DATE OF DEATH	1965

[1] IfZ: ZS Letsch, Bl. 5 : Report from February 25, 1947.

[2] IfZ: ZS Walter Letsch, p. 73 : Report of the Evidence Division of the American Office of Chief of Counsel for War Crimes of September 30, 1947 ("[...] Letsch is no logner considered by the Ministries Division as a potential defendant [... ] ").

[3] Eva Seeber: Forced Laborers in the Fascist War Economy. The deportation and exploitation of Polish citizens with special attention to the situation of workers from the so-called General Government, 1939–1945 . 1964, p. 72.