WACHTER OTTO: (1901-1949) Austrian Lawyer, Nazi Politician and a high-ranking member of the SS who served as Governor of the Krakow District 1939-42 and Governor of the District of Galicia 1942-44. An extremely rare T.L.S., Wachter, one page, 4to, Vienna, 5^th April 1938, to the SS leader Christian Opdenhoff at the office of the Reich Commissioner for Austria, Josef Burckel, on printed stationery featuring a blind embossed Nazi Eagle and Swastika, in German. Wachter writes on the subject of party comrades who have arrived in Vienna from Germany and asks that the employees within his office be issued with residency permits, remarking 'I would like to point out that the Party comrades mentioned have specialist knowledge from their work at the NSDAP refugee agency, which I consider to be indispensable for establishing and managing my office'. Initialled in red indelible pencil, presumably by Opdenhoff. With four file holes to the left edge, not affecting the text or signature. VG

Christian Opdenhoff (1902-1975) German NSDAP politician and an SS Oberfuhrer who, when Austria was 'annexed' to the German Reich, served on the staff of Josef Burckel (1895-1944), the Reich Commissioner for the reunification of Austria with the German Reich, in charge of building up the NSDAP in Austria.

As a result of decrees issued by Otto Wachter, 68,000 Jews were expelled from Krakow in 1940 and in the following year the Krakow Ghetto was created for the remaining 15,000 Jews. Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal claimed that Wachter personally oversaw the transportation of four thousand Jews to extermination camps and was responsible for killing at least 800,000 Jews. In 1946 the Polish government requested that Wachter be delivered to Poland for trial for mass murder, shooting and executions, however Wachter managed to evade the Allied authorities for four years and in 1949 he was given refuge by the pro-Nazi Austrian bishop Alois Hudal in the Vatican, where he died the same year, aged 48, reportedly from kidney disease. Although Wachter was undeniably a primary perpetrator of the Holocaust and a leader of the Jewish extermination campaign, his son, Horst, claims his father was 'a good Nazi'.