Otto Dietrich

Journalist and politician, born in Essen, W Germany. He was appointed press chief of the Nationalsozialistiche Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) in 1931, and from 1938 press chief of the NS-Government. During the war he headed the press department in the Führerhauptquartier. In 1949 he was sentenced to seven years imprisonment, but was pardoned in 1950.

Dr. Otto Dietrich (August 31, 1897 in Essen - November 22, 1952 in Düsseldorf) was the Third Reich's Press Chief, and Hitler's confidante. He was born in August 1887, and died at the age of 65 in 1952, after serving time in Landsberg Prison following the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials, where he was convicted of crimes against humanity and being a member of a criminal organization, namely the SS in the Ministries Trial and sentenced to seven years' imprisonment.

After his time as a soldier in World War I, he was awarded the Iron Cross (First Class).

He strongly supported Nazi ideology, and became a member of the NSDAP (Nazi Party) almost immediately after its foundation in 1919.

Dietrich retained the confidence of the Führer throughout the regime until Hitler fired him after an argument towards the end of the war. However, in the secrecy mandated by war, Dietrich, who was not in Hitler's "inner circle," often did not truly know of Hitler's whereabouts. In captivity he wrote a book ("The Hitler I Knew") sharply critical of Hitler personally and strongly denouncing the crimes committed in the name of Nazism.