Leopold Poetsch

Leopold Poetsch was a German antiSemitic professor and a high school teacher of Adolf Hitler who influenced the future leader's later views.

Poetsch came from the southern German border area. There, political fights between Slavs and ethnic Germans angered him and made him one who was for the Pan-German movement. He started to teach in Maribor, Slovenia and later moved to Linz, Austria to teach history.

Hitler was very interested in what Poetsch said. Poetsch hated the Habsburgs and argued that all ethnic Germans should be united by a single government. He said that the Aryan race was stronger, in better health, and more fit to rule than all other people. Poetsch said that Jews and Slavs were what he called "inferior races". (This view was held a lot in Germany after World War I.)

Hitler began reading an anti-Semitic newspaper in his area. In his later years, Hitler spoke of Poetsch as a "great man." As dictator of Germany, Hitler tried to get all German-speaking people together and persecuted Slavs, Jews, Gypsies, and others. Hitler later tried to kill them all in the "Final Solution."

References

• Shirer, William L. Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. Simon & Schuster, 1990. ISBN 0-671-72868-7