Defendant Hans Fritzsche enters the Nuremberg courtroom under American guard.
— Harry S. Truman Library
Hans Fritzsche (1900-1953) was head of the radio division of the German propaganda ministry. A relatively minor propaganda ministry official who had not held a policy-making position, Fritzsche was included in the dock at Nuremberg in the absence of the deceased Joseph Goebbels and to mollify Soviet authorities, who held him in their custody. Although he was acquitted by the International Military Tribunal, he was then arrested again and brought before West German denazification courts. Fritzsche was sentenced to nine years imprisonment yet was released early in September 1950.
