Dietrich Klagges (1 February 1891-12 November 1971) was the German NSDAP Minister-President of the Free State of Brunswick from 6 May 1933 to 12 April 1945, succeeding Werner Küchenthal and preceding Hubert Schlebusch.
Biography[]
Dietrich Klagges was born in Herringsen, Westphalia, German Empire in 1891. He worked as a teacher before serving in the Imperial German Army during World War I; he was wounded on the Western Front on 1 April 1915 and was discharged on 31 July 1916. He was a member of the DNVP from 1918 to 1924 and proceeded to join the DVFP and then the NSDAP in 1925. He worked as deputy headmaster of a school in Saxony-Anhalt from 1926 to 1930, and he became a propaganda speechmaker in Braunschweig after being fired from his educational job due to his NSDAP membership. He served as Education Minister of the Free State of Brunswick from 1931 to 1945 and Minister-President from 1933 to 1945, and he attempted to maintain Brunswick's autonomy within the German Reich. On 12 April 1945, he was captured by the US Army, and, in 1946, he was sentenced to 6 years of hard labor for his crimes, and then to life in prison in 1950. His life sentence was overturned in 1952, and he was released in 1957. He maintained contact with neo-Nazi groups in Lower Saxony until his death in 1971.