Hans Heinrich Lammers (May 27, 1879 - January 4, 1962) was a prominent Nazi and head of the Reich Chancellery.
Born in Lublinitz (Lubliniec) in Upper Silesia, the son of a veterinarian,
Lammers completed law school in Breslau and Heidelberg, and was a judge in
Beuthen (modern Bytom) in 1912.
Lammers received the Iron Cross, First and Second Class, during the First World War, then
resumed his career as a lawyer and joined the German National Peoples Party (DNVP), reaching
the position of Undersecretary of the Interior by 1922.
In 1932, Lammers joined the Nazi Party and achieved rapid promotion, appointed a
police department head in 1933, and soon afterwards a State Secretary and chief of the
Reich Chancellery. In this position, he became the center of communications and chief
legal adviser for all government departments. From 1937, he was a member of Hitler's cabinet
as a Reich Minister without Portfolio, and from November 30, 1939 a member
of the Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich.
Beginning in January 1943, Lammers served as President of the cabinet when Hitler
was absent from their meetings. Along with Martin Bormann, he
increasingly controlled access to Hitler.
Lammers was briefly arrested during the final days of the Third Reich,
in connection with the upheaval surrounding
Hermann Göring.
After the war, the Nuremberg tribunal sentenced Lammers to 20 years in prison.
The sentence was later reduced to 10 years, and he was pardoned and released in 1952.
He died on January 4, 1962 in Dusseldorf.
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