- Fritz Rössler
Fritz Rössler (
January 17 1912 –October 11 1987 ) was a low-level official in theNazi Party who went on to become a leading figure in German neo-Nazi politics. In his later life he was more commonly known as Dr. Franz Richter.Nazi activity
Rössler was born in
Bad Gottleuba-Berggießhübel ,Saxony . After attending university inDresden (where he did not complete a degree), Rössler became a Nazi in 1930 and soon became a technical adviser to the Gau of Saxony where he specialized in plans for resettlement of the East. By the end ofWorld War II , Rössler was heading up the main office of theMinistry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda before fleeing the Eastern Front toSaarland . [Philip Rees , "Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890 ", p. 328]Dr. Franz Richter
As the war came to an end, Rössler emerged in
Hanover where he claimed to be Dr. Franz Richter, a Sudeten German teacher. The ruse was accepted, and Rössler moved to Luthe in Saxony where he found teaching work. [Rees, op cit] Fired from his position in 1949 for teaching theStab-in-the-back legend , he soon joined theDeutsche Rechtspartei and its successor theDeutsche Reichspartei . [Rees, op cit] Bearing a passing resemblance toAdolf Hitler due to histoothbrush moustache and habit of wearingJodhpurs andjackboots , he was elected to theBundestag in the 1949 election but was expelled from the party the following year due to his radical Nazi ideals and his habit of attending parliament drunk. [Rees, op cit]Along with a number of other expellees from the DRP, he was a founder member of the
Socialist Reich Party , which called for a restoration of Germany's historic borders and "National-Socialist fundamental principles". [Rees, op cit] Continuing to sit in the Bundestag, he made a notoriouslyanti-Semitic speech in November 1951 and was arrested soon afterwards for forging documents. In the course of investigations it was uncovered that Dr. Franz Richter was in fact Fritz Rössler, and he was sentenced to 18 months in prison for the forgery, on top of a three-month sentence for insulting Lower Saxon ministers and breaching electoral regulations. [Rees, op cit]As Richter he also built up a close relationship with the British
Union Movement , distributing Mosleyite literature across Germany, whilst also establshing the All German Representations "pen club" to arrange contacts between British activists and German followers ofEurope a Nation . [G. Macklin, "Very Deeply Dyed in Black - Sir Oswald Mosley and the Resurrection of British Fascism after 1945", New York: IB Tauris, 2007, p. 89]Later years
Involved with the
European Social Movement , Rössler was expelled from the SRP before it was banned, and after his release from prison he moved toCairo , where a number of neo-Nazis operatives were based, and adopted the name Achmed Rössler. [Rees, op cit] He returned to Germany in 1966 and became a businessman inEssen . [Rees, op cit] He died at age 75 inRadstadt ,Austria .External link
* [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,890244-1,00.html Report on the discovery of Rössler's faked identity]
References
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