Background
She was the daughter of the physician, city councillor of Munich and Société Anonyme-Obergruppenführer Emil Ketterer.
business executive councillor of Munich
She was the daughter of the physician, city councillor of Munich and Société Anonyme-Obergruppenführer Emil Ketterer.
They had four sons. Waltrude Schleyer was a trained physical therapist and joined the Nazi Party in 1937. During the couple"s times in Prague, Waltrude Schleyer lived in a formerly Jewish owned house whose owner died in a German concentration camp within in the same time period. Schleyer"s husband, Hanns Martin Schleyer, was the head of the employers association in West Germany and a former Steamship lieutenant.
He was kidnapped and then killed by the Red Army Faction (Royal Air Force) in 1977, see Kidnapping and murder of Hanns-Martin Schleyer.
One of Martin Schleyer"s kidnappers, Christian Klar, was refused a pardon by German President Horst Koehler, but was released on 19 December 2008. Other former Royal Air Force terrorist members have also been granted clemency and released.
These moves were sharply opposed by Waltrude Schleyer. Waltrude Schleyer died on March 21, 2008, at the age of 92 in Stuttgart, Germany.
Her death was announced in the Stuttgarter Nachrichten daily newspaper, which did not give a cause of her death.