pencil sketch of a Nazi by Dr K Prabhakar Rao

OTTO HELLMUTH. NAZI

He took part in WWI and was wounded four times. He was severely gassed and later he returned home.In 1928, Hellmuth became Gauleiter of Lower Franconia.Three weeks before the first nationwide anti-Jewish boycott began in 1933, Hellmuth already forced the closing of Jewish-owned stores and offices in Würzburg. As a private residence, he acquired the house of a Jewish pharmacist. When the Gaufrauenschaftsleiterin of Mainfranken paid Passau a formal visit, with a delegation of activists, Margarethe Schneider-Reichel presented them with a painting of Hellmuth.Over most of his term, Hellmuth was not an impressive personality. Joseph Goebbels saw him as "a most retiring unassuming Gauleiter in whom one had not too much confidence." However, Hellmuth defended his Gau vigorously in the spring of 1945, as Goebbels noted in his diary on April 2.

In 1947, Hellmuth was accused of complicity in the murders of Allied aircraft pilots. He was tried at Dachau and sentenced to death. This sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. He was released in 1955.Hellmuth killed himself on April 20, 1968 in Reutlingen.