BERLIN (AP) — A German Jewish newspaper reports that a Jewish World War I veteran apparently was spared deportation to a Nazi death camp due to an intervention by Adolf Hitler.
The quarterly Jewish Voice reports that a newly discovered letter appears to show Hitler wanted Erich Hess to be spared persecution because the two had served in the same WWI unit. Hess died in 1983.
The newspaper says the letter from the SS paramilitary organization was discovered in official archives containing files the Nazi secret police, or Gestapo, kept on Jewish lawyers and judges.
Historian Susanne Mauss, who found the letter, told The Associated Press on Friday its authenticity is corroborated by other documents, including one owned by Hess' daughter Ursula.
Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust under Hitler's rule.
