Otto Dietrich

Otto Dietrich was born in Essen, he served as a soldier during World War I and was awarded the Iron Cross (First Class).

Here he was able to introduce Hitler to numerous important officials within different sects of the mining industry to help secure funding for the Nazi Party.

He aided party members to acquire positions of power and general acceptance within different communities and helped to spread Nazi ideology to the public.

[6] His job as Press Chief overlapped with Joseph Goebbels's Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, and thus many anecdotes exist of their feuds.

Dietrich retained the confidence of the Führer throughout the regime until Hitler accused him of defeatism and placed him on indefinite leave after an argument on 30 March 1945.

In 1949, 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.

"These press and periodical directives were not mere political polemics, they were not aimless expressions of anti-Semitism, and they were not designed only to unite the German people in the war effort."

Memoirs of the Third Reich's Press Chief, a book sharply critical of Hitler personally and strongly denouncing the crimes committed in the name of Nazism.

Hitler visits Paris in 1940 with Dietrich
Hitler receives British PM Neville Chamberlain (September 1938). Dietrich is on the right, behind Hitler