Wilhelm Stuckart

Wilhelm Stuckart (16 November 1902 – 15 November 1953) was a Nazi Party lawyer, official and a state secretary in the German Interior Ministry. For actions taken in these capacities, Dr Stuckart was convicted as a war criminal.

Early life

Stuckart was born in Wiesbaden, the son of a railway employee. He had a Christian upbringing. Stuckart was active in the far right early on, and joined the Freikorps von Epp in 1919 to resist the French occupation of the Ruhr. In 1922 he started studying law and political economy at the universities of Munich and Frankfurt am Main, and joined the Nazi Party in December that year; he remained a member until the party was banned after the failed putsch of 1923. In order to support his parents, Stuckart had to abandon his studies temporarily and work in the Nassau Regional Bank in Frankfurt in 1924. He finished his studies in 1928, receiving a doctorate with a thesis entitled Erklärung an die Öffentlichkeit, insbesondere die Anmeldung zum Handelsregister ("Explanations to the Public, Especially Concerning the Enrollment to the Trade Register"); he passed the bar examination in 1930.