Albert Leo Schlageter

Albert Leo Schlageter was an Imperial German Army officer who served in World War I before joining several Freikorps groups and carrying out acts of sabotage against French occupational forces in the Ruhr. Schlageter was arrested by French forces for sabotaging railroad tracks and executed by firing squad in 1923. After his death, he was viewed by many German nationalists as a martyr, including the Nazi Party. In Nazi Germany, Schlageter was commemorated as a national hero, which in turn led Allied occupational authorities to target such commemoration after World War II as part of the denazification process.