To the left of Hitler in Oct 1939
LAMMERS, HANS HEINRICH (1879 - 1962)
Reichsminister. Chief of the Reich Chancery. SS-Obergruppenführer. Member of and Secretary to the Secret Cabinet. Member of the Academy of German Law.
I read about him that he was considered a very powerful man in the nazi Germany. On top was the gang of three: Bormann, Keitel, Lammers? ( I myself wonder why Keitel is here but that´s what one of my books say )
A NaziOofficial and Career Civil Servant
Lammers joined the Nazi party in 1932, and was appointed by Adolf Hitler to be his chief of chancery on January 30, 1933 (on November 26, 1937, Lammers was raised to the rank of Reichsminister). The chancery was the German head of government's main center of communication with the government departments, and Lammers's influence and power grew rapidly with Hitler's increasing power. When Cabinet meetings became less frequent and, in consequence, there were fewer occasions on which votes were taken on government bills, the chief of chancery's regular presentation to the Fuhrer became the most important means of approach to Hitler. All draft legislation, including every anti - Jewish measure, passed through Lammers's hands. In the face of growing anarchy, Lammers sought to run the chancery in accordance with established administrative principles and on the basis of legal norms, but as time went on he had to make more and more ideological concessions, and, after 1941, the influence he had wielded passed increasingly into the hands of Martin Bormann.
Postwar Trial.
In the 1949 Wilhelmstrasse - Prozess (Ministries Trial), Lammers was sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment for formulating and authorizing antisemitic legislation, which culminated in the "final solution." The sentence was reduced to ten years by the United States High Command in 1951, and in December 1954 he was pardoned and released from prison.
http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/text/x14/xm1404.html
If anyone has more pics or details of this man´s life and work, please sent here.
