1941 REICHSMINISTER KERRL LETTER TO FORMER CHIEF ADJUTANT OF HITLER

Hanns Kerrl (11 December 1887 – 14 December 1941) was a German Nazi politician. His most prominent position, from July 1935, was that of Reichsminister of Church Affairs. He was also President of the Prussian Landtag (1932–1933) and head of the Zweckverband Reichsparteitag Nürnberg and in that capacity edited a number of Nuremberg rally yearbooks. Joining the Nazi Party in 1923, he founded and led an Ortsgruppe (‘Local Group’) in Peine, a suburb of Hannover. In the fall of 1925, Kerrl became a member of the National Socialist Working Association, a short-lived group of north and northwest German Gaue, organized and led by Gregor Strasser, which unsuccessfully sought to amend the Party program. It was dissolved in 1926 following the Bamberg Conference. An associate of Bernhard Rust, the local Gauleiter, in 1928 Kerrl became the Kreisleiter of Peine District. Also elected to the Landtag of Prussia in 1928, he served as head of the Nazi faction and, on 24 May 1932 after the Nazis won the largest number of seats in the April election, he became President of the assembly. He remained in this position until the Landtag was finally dissolved on 14 October 1933, in the wake of the Nazi subordination of the German States to the Reich government. After the Nazi seizure of power, Kerrl was appointed Reich Commissioner to the Prussian Ministry of Justice on 23 March 1933 and on 21 April was made Minister of Justice, serving until June 1934. In this position, Kerrl placed a ban on Jewish notaries preparing official documents and banned Jewish lawyers from practicing in Prussia. In September 1933 he was made a member of the Prussian State Council. He also was named to the Academy for German Law and sat on its Präsidium (‘standing committee’). Kerrl was elected to the Reichstag for electoral constituency 16, South Hanover-Braunschweig, in November 1933. When the Reichstag convened on 12 December, he was named First Deputy President to Reichstag President Hermann Göring and would serve in this capacity until his death. On 17 June 1934, Kerrl entered the national Reich cabinet as a Reichsminister without Portfolio. Kerrl died in office on 14 December 1941, aged 54. He was succeeded by Hermann Muhs. [source: Wikipedia]

The letter, dated 5 December 1941 – only nine days before Kerrls death – is typed on his official Berlin, Preussenhaus ministry building stationary and addressed to Parteigenosse (fellow party member) Brückner, whom he thanks for the kind birthday wishes, sent via field post. The recipient was Wilhelm Brückner who was Hitler’s chief adjutant from 1930 to 1940. Thereafter, Brückner joined the Heer (army), becoming an Oberst (colonel) by war’s end. That’s why he sent the birthday wishes to Kerrl from the field. Nice original Hans Kerrl signature.