Otto Dietrich
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Dr. Otto Dietrich (August 31, 1897 - November 22, 1952) was an SS-Obergruppenführer, the Third Reich's Press Chief, and a confidant of Adolf Hitler. He was born in August 1897 in Essen and died at the age of 55 in 1952.
After his time as a soldier in World War I, he was awarded the Iron Cross (First Class). After this he went to the universities of Munich, Frankfurt am Main and Freiburg, from which he graduated with a doctorate in political science in 1921.
He strongly supported Nazi ideology, and became a member of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) almost immediately after its foundation in 1919. On August 1, 1931 he was appointed Press Chief of the NSDAP, and the following year joined the SS. By 1941 he had risen to the rank of SS-Obergruppenführer.
His job as Press Chief overlapped with Joseph Goebbels's Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda, and thus many anecdotes exist of their feuds. They were infamous for their disagreements, and both often felt obliged to "repair" the mistakes of the other.
Dietrich retained the confidence of the Führer throughout the regime until Hitler fired him after an argument towards the end of World War II. However, in the secrecy mandated by war, Dietrich, who was not in Hitler's "inner circle," often did not truly know of Hitler's whereabouts. He was tried at the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials, where he was convicted of crimes against humanity and being a member of a criminal organization, namely the SS and was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment. In captivity in Landsberg Prison, he wrote a book ("The Hitler I Knew") sharply critical of Hitler personally and strongly denouncing the crimes committed in the name of Nazism.
Dietrich died in November 1952 in Düsseldorf.
