Pleading for Detainees

Regional bishop Wurm intervened for detainees with Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, who had assumed the post of Reich Minister of the Interior in August of 1943. In the letter pictured, Wurm first expressed his thanks for the release of notary candidate Alfred Leikam, who came from Württemberg.

Leikam had been sentenced to ten months of prison on probation in 1938 for making statements critical about National Socialism. Rather than being released after the sentence had been pronounced, however, he was held prisoner in Buchenwald concentration camp from November 1938 onward.

Wurm asked for the release of Hermann Hesse, a pastor in Elberfeld who was serving a sentence in Dachau concentration camp. As he had before, Wurm interceded once again for Pastor Martin Niemöller as well, who served a sentence in Sachsenhausen concentration camp as the “Führer’s personal prisoner” as of 1937 as well as in Dachau concentration camp as of 1941.