Page "Hanns-Martin Schleyer" Paragraph 3

Very early in his life he became a follower of National Socialism.

After a stint in the Hitler Youth, the youth organization of the National Socialist Party, he joined the SS in 1933 and was an Untersturmführer ( Second Lieutenant ).

During his studies, he was engaged in the Nazi student movement.

An early, important mentor of this time was the student leader Gustav Adolf Scheel.

In the summer of 1935, Schleyer accused his fraternity of lacking " national socialist spirit ".

He left the fraternity when the Kösener SC, an umbrella organization, refused to exclude Jewish members.

Schleyer started a career as a leader in the national socialist student movement and, in 1937, he joined the Nazi party.

At first he was the president of the student body of the University of Heidelberg.

Later, Reichsstudentenführer Scheel sent him to post-Anschluss Austria, where he occupied the same position at the University of Innsbruck.

In 1939 Schleyer married Waltrude Ketterer ( 1916 – 2008 ), daughter of the physician, city councillor of Munich and SA-Obergruppenführer Emil Ketterer.

They had four sons.