Albert Leo Schlageter

Vocation

Member of the German Freikorps. His activities sabotaging French occupying troops after World War I led to his arrest and eventual execution by French forces. His death created an image of martyrdom around him, which was cultivated by German nationalist groups, in particular the Nazi Party. During the Third Reich, he was widely commemorated as a national hero. After the outbreak of the First World War, he became a voluntary emergency worker for the military. During the war, he participated in several battles, notably Ypres (1915), the Somme (1916) and Verdun, earning the Iron Cross both first and second class. Following his promotion to second lieutenant, he took part in the Third Battle of Ypres (1917). After the war and his dismissal from the greatly reduced army, Schlageter described himself as a student of political sciences, but he studied the subject at the most for one year. About this time, he became a member of a right-wing Catholic student group. Soon he also joined the Freikorps and took part in the Kapp Putsch and other battles between military and communist factions that were convulsing Germany. His unit also took part in the Silesian Uprisings fighting on the German side. Already close to national socialists before, around the time of the Battle of Annaberg of 1921 Schlageter's unit merged with the emerging Nazi Party. During the Third Silesian Uprising of 1921 Schlageter became infamous for persecution of local inhabitants and terrorist actions against both the local Poles and Germans he and his group perceived as opposing his cause.[2] During the occupation of the Ruhr in 1923, he led an illegal "combat patrol" that tried to resist the French occupying forces by means of sabotage. A number of trains were derailed in order to disrupt supplies to the occupiers. On 7 April 1923 Schlageter was betrayed, possibly from within his own ranks, and was arrested (on 8 April) by the French. Tried by court-martial on 7 May 1923, he was condemned to death. On the morning of 26 May he was executed on the Golzheimer heath near Düsseldorf. Link to Wikipedia biography