Remer, Otto Ernst (1917-1997)

Otto Ernst Remer was born in Neubrandenburg (Mecklenburg) the son of a judicial officer. He embarked on a military career and by 1935 was made lieutenant. He was wounded several times during World War Two and was highly decorated. Although never a Nazi party member he played an important part in the suppression of the July 1944 conspiracy against Hitler. He was promoted by Hitler, as a result, to major-general on 31 January 1945. After a short period of imprisonment under the Americans after the war, he began working for them as a researcher into the history of the war.

He was expelled from the Deutsche Reichspartei for his extreme views and founded the more extreme Sozialistische Reichspartei. There followed short periods of imprisonment for minor offences in Germany and periods of exile in Egypt and Syria, where he is thought to have established links with the notorious fugitive Nazi war criminal, Alois Brunner. He died in 1997.

Donald Mayer; Gerald Fleming