Background
Hanns Kerrl was born in Fallserleben, the son of a Lutheran school teacher, on 2 December 1887.
Hanns Kerrl was born in Fallserleben, the son of a Lutheran school teacher, on 2 December 1887.
During World War I he served as a Lieutenant and received the Iron Cross (First and Second Classes). Kerri was Reich Commissioner in the Prussian Ministry of Justice from 23 March until 20 April 1933, during which period he placed a ban on any Jewish notary engaging in official business and forbade Jewish lawyers from practising in Prussia.
Elected to the Reichstag on 12 November 1933 for the electoral district of South Hanover-Braunschweig, Kerri was made Reich Minister without Portfolio on 17 June 1934.
A sympathizer with the “German Christians’, Kerri was appointed Minister for Church Affairs on 16 July 1935 and was responsible for the Nazi co-ordination of the Christian churches. Kerri’s policies sought to bring the exercise of spiritual and pastoral functions in the Evangelical Church completely under government control, arousing the opposition of a number of Protestant churchmen and theologians.
He died in Berlin on 15 December 1941.