7180 - Arthur Seyss-Inquart Autograph Letter Signed from Nuremberg Prison to His Children, Referencing Aid to a Jewish Emigrant

Arthur Seyss-Inquart Autograph Letter Signed from Nuremberg Prison to His Children, Referencing Aid to a Jewish Emigrant ALS in pencil, in German, signed “Your Father,” one page, 8 x 11.75, U.S. Government "Prisoner of War" letterhead, March 23, 1946. Handwritten letter to his children, written from Nuremberg Prison. In full (translated): "I have just got Mummy's letter of 28.2. Thanks, thanks from the bottom of my heart! And that we understand each other still so well after the long separation and all that has happened in between. Please hold fast to that, I am terribly proud of you. Dick is our great sorrow, but he will not surrender his principles, perhaps they will help him yet. I am delighted about your news from Vienna. Yes—friends! That's how the best side of people really shows itself. I had an absolutely wonderful example of it here myself. From a Jew whom I had helped to emigrate to Australia. You don't know him. Today is a real spring day, I looked at the first dwarf asters in the grass and strolled in the sunshine. I've got over a terrible head cold, everything streaming, but no headache. My cell looked like a room in a maternity ward, with four or five handkerchiefs hang up to dry. Now, nothing more from me. I am delighted that you can enjoy the spring, and that Dick will not miss it either. Best love to all, and write long and often. I have no worries, as far as concerns myself, but I do not think of that, only always of you." Seyss-Inquart writes his name, "Arth. Seyss-Inquart," and Nuremberg internment address at the bottom. In fine condition. Seyss-Inquart served as Reichskommissar of the occupied Netherlands and was executed in October 1946 for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including his role in the persecution and deportation of Dutch Jews. Against that record, his reference here to “a Jew whom I had helped to emigrate to Australia” reads as an attempt to present his children with evidence of a more humane side to his conduct. The man was Walter Stricker, a Jewish lawyer whose sworn affidavit was later submitted to the Tribunal as 'Document Seyss-Inquart-70'; Stricker confirmed that Seyss-Inquart had, in fact, assisted him in emigrating.