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AMS in pencil, in German, signed "Fritzsche," nine pages, 8 x 13, no date but circa 1945–1946, written while preparing his defense in the Nuremberg trials. In this lengthy autobiographical statement, Fritzsche recounts his life from birth through the start of his journalism career. He writes in detail about his family: born April 21, 1900, in Bochum, the youngest of four children of a post office employee; his father's side traced armorers back to 1570 near Leipzig, his mother's side gardeners near Münster, both families originally from Holland. He describes a lonely, bookish childhood, a sister whose fiancé was reported missing in Russia in 1914 and who years later died in a car accident on the eve of her second engagement, a brother who died by suicide in 1928 believing himself betrayed, and another brother who lost a leg as a Russian prisoner of war. He recalls close boyhood friendships with two Jewish classmates in Breslau, one of whom he sponsored into Protestant confirmation, and reflects on his schooling, his brief wartime service in Flanders at seventeen, his university studies in Greifswald, and his early 1920s associations with figures including Karl Radek, Mussolini, and Hitler, whom he says he "kept at a distance." The narrative closes with his entry into journalism in 1924. In very good to fine condition, with overall toning and a few small edge tears. Accompanied by a full English translation.
Written as part of Fritzsche's defense preparation at Nuremberg, the statement offers a rare, extended first-person account of the private life and formation of a man who rose to head the Radio Division of Goebbels's Propaganda Ministry and was one of only three defendants acquitted at the main Nuremberg trial. Photos do not cover every original page; a nine-page original letter.
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