[2] War was declared by major belligerents in September 1939 and in May 1940 the German army invaded Luxembourg, which marked the start of more than four years of military occupation for the Grand Duchy.
In August 1940 Leonhard Drach was seconded to Luxembourg as a "Head of civil administration" ("Chef der Zivilverwaltung""), a role which after 1941 he combined with that of Senior District Prosecutor, based in Koblenz.
In Luxembourg his position effectively made him the chief prosecutor at the newly created Special Court, and he worked on numerous criminal cases, frequently and successfully demanding the imposition of a death sentence.
He was rewarded with the Cross of Merit (2nd class) for his "constructive work" ("Aufbauarbeit") and "fact based conduct of political criminal cases" ("sachliche Erledigung politischer Strafverfahren").
[9] In December 1961 the Frankenthal District Court handed down a 2,000 Mark fine and a suspended six-month jail sentence to Wilhelm Nowack after finding him guilty of misfeasance in a public office ("Untreue im Amt").
He had reportedly acquired 20 shares in a company called "Schnellpressenfabrik Frankenthal AG", which was 75% state owned, and of which Nowack, as regional finance minister, was the ex-officio chairman.
"That this notorious accomplice of Nazi terrorist-justice launches this prosecution against me is a matter of inestimable shamefulness" ("Man hat sich nicht entblödet ausgerechnet diesen notorischen Helfershelfer nationalsozialistischer Terrorjustiz zum Ankläger gegen mich zu machen.").
[9] Nowack concluded that he refused to be prosecuted by a war criminal ("Ich lehne es ab, mich von einem Kriegsverbrecher anklagen zu lassen").
[9] Schneider's attempt retrospectively to vindicate Drach "represented a completely false assessment of the inhuman persecution that had taken over in Luxembourg during the war" ("...stellt eine völlige Verkennung der unmenschlichen Verfolgungsmaßnahmen dar, die während des Krieges in Luxemburg ergriffen wurden").
[9] Victor Bodson, who as Luxembourg's Minister of Justice back in 1954 had signed off on the release, expressed himself more pithily: "We chucked the muck over the Moselle" ("Wir haben den Dreck über die Mosel abgeschoben").
[9] After the entire matter had been publicised, and following the launch of an investigation by regional parliamentary committee, Leonhard Drach's application for early retirement was accepted with effect from 30 April 1966.
[2] His name was included in Albert Norden's "Brown Book" in which the author "outed" approximately 1,800 members of the West German political and administrative establishment whom he claimed to have identified as former Nazis.
[11] As a very old man, when interviewed, Leonhard Drach maintained that he had only acted in accordance with the law ("Ich habe nur nach Recht und Gesetz gehandelt").