Hans Fritzsche
German Nazi official (1900-1953); International Military Tribunal defendant · Germany · Journalists · Died at 53
Hans Fritzsche is read about 460 times a day, in 39 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 8 October 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 383 days, one point a day.
Something wrong?His voice reached most of Germany during the Third Reich - not Hitler's speeches, but the daily broadcasts meant to make the regime feel ordinary. At Nuremberg he was the only defendant acquitted outright, a verdict that turned on whether words alone could be war crimes.
A life in dates
Also in Deutsch
Photos 6
In their own words 6
, I do not by any means want to deny that I and my fellow workers selected news and quotations following a certain tendency.
I often said that never in the history of the world did one man receive so much faith and trust as Hitler.
In the first place, there is the Hitler group, among whom are the most guilty of the defendants and about whom very little, if any, good can be spoken.
In their orbit
About this person
Hans Fritzsche served in the Imperial German Army in the First World War, then joined the German National People's Party and began broadcasting in 1932. A year later his agency folded into Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry and he joined the Nazi Party. By 1938 he headed the Press Division; in 1942 he moved to the Radio Division, where his voice became the most recognized in Germany - part of an effort to present a popular, entertaining face for the regime. He held no policy role. In the final days he was in the Führerbunker, surrendered to the Red Army after Hitler's death, and stood trial at Nuremberg on war crimes charges. The tribunal acquitted him. A German denazification court sentenced him to nine years hard labour in 1947; he was released under amnesty in 1950 and died in 1953.
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