Max Liedtke

He was honoured as Righteous Among the Nations for his resistance against the "liquidation" of the entire Jewish population (including slave labor) of the ghetto in Przemyśl in eastern Poland.

[1] Liedtke was born in Preussisch Holland, East Prussia (today Pasłęk, Poland) to a Lutheran Vicar.

He passed his Abitur in Gumbinnen (today Gusev, Russia) and started to study Lutheran theology at the University of Königsberg, but volunteered for the German Imperial Army at the outbreak of World War I.

On 26 July 1942, the SS, Gestapo and the GPK (Grenzpolizeikommissariat – Frontier Police Authority) prepared to launch their first large-scale "resettlement" action against the Jews from the ghetto in Przemyśl, part of Operation Reinhard, the most deadly phase of the Holocaust.

Liedtke's adjutant, Oberleutnant Albert Battel, requested that those working for the Wehrmacht be retained[1] and gave orders to block the bridge over the River San, the only route of deportation from the ghetto.