Otto Dietrich

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Dr. Paul Karl Schmidt (left) welcoming the Reich Press Chief (Reichspressechef der NSDAP) SS-Gruppenführer Dr. rer. pol. Otto Dietrich during the Reception at the Club der Auslandspresse (Foreign Press Club), Fasanenstraße, Berlin, in May 1940

Jacob Otto Dietrich (31 August 1897 – 22 November 1952) was a German National Socialist, Reich Press Chief of the NSDAP, SS-Obergruppenführer and State Secretary in the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (RMVP) as well as politician.

Life

After his military service as a 2nd Lieutenant during World War I, he was awarded the Iron Cross (First Class). After the First World War, he studied philosophy and political science in Freiburg, Munich and Frankfurt am Main, and received his doctorate in political science in Freiburg in 1921 with the distinction “magna cum laude”. He then worked as a research assistant at the Essen Chamber of Commerce and as a legal counsel at the steel goods syndicate. Soon after, he went into the press and became a commercial editor at the “Essener Allgemeine Zeitung”.

On 1 April 1929, Dietrich joined the NSDAP (membership number 126,727). In the same year, he returned to Essen and became editor of the newly founded NSDAP newspaper "Nationalzeitung". On 1 August 1931, Dietrich became Reich Press Chief of the NSDAP and founded the National Socialist Press Conference. In 1932, he took the position of Reich Leader in the NSDAP's leadership corps. In the same year, he joined the SS (SS number 101,349).

On 30 April 1933, Dietrich was unanimously elected chairman of the Reich Association of the German Press (RDP). From the beginning of 1934, he was also vice president of the Reich Press Chamber, to which the Reich Association of the German Press belonged. From 1937 to 1945, he held the position of State Secretary in the RMVP. In this position, he oversaw Department IV (Press) together with Walter Funk. Before Hitler seized power, Dietrich became Hitler's personal press officer and was subsequently appointed Reich Press Chief of the NSDAP by Hitler - from 27 January 1934, with the rank of SS Group Leader - and therefore also bore the official title of Press Chief of the Reich Government. From 1936, Dietrich was a member of the Reichstag for constituency 29 (Leipzig).

Joseph Goebbels appointed him a member of the Reich Cultural Senate in November 1935. His and Goebbels's functions overlapped, contributing to conflicts. At the Nuremberg trials, he was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment. In captivity, he wrote The Hitler I Knew. Memoirs of the Third Reich's Press Chief, a politically correct account, now criticizing Hitler.

On 11 April 1949, Dietrich was sentenced to seven years in prison as a war criminal in the Wilhelmstraße Trial. The witness for the prosecution was Ribbentrop's press chief Paul Karl Schmidt, who later wrote several war books under the name Paul Carell. After being sentenced to seven years in prison, Dietrich was pardoned by the Allied High Commissioner General John Jay McCloy in August 1950 and released from the Landsberg war criminal prison. Dietrich later took up employment as a manager with the German Motor Transport Company (Deutsche Kraftverkehr GmbH).

SS promotions

Awards and decorations

Works (excerpt)

  • Mit Hitler in die Macht. 1933.
  • Die philosophischen Grundlagen des Nationalsozialismus. Ein Ruf zu den Waffen deutschen Geistes, Mit einem Nachwort von Alfred-Ingemar Berndt, Ferdinand Hirt, Breslau 1935
  • Der Führer und das deutsche Volk. 1936 (online in English)
  • Weltpresse ohne Maske, 1937
  • Das Wirtschaftsdenken im Dritten Reich, 1937
  • Auf den Straßen des Sieges. Mit dem Führer in Polen, 1939
  • Zwölf Jahre mit Hitler, 1955
  • The Hitler I Knew. Memoirs of the Third Reich's Press Chief, Skyhorse Publishing, 2010
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