Background
Theodor von Renteln was born on 14 September 1897 in Hotsi, Russia.
Theodor von Renteln was born on 14 September 1897 in Hotsi, Russia.
He studied law and economics at Berlin and Rostock between 1920 and 1924.
Von Renteln entered the NSDAP in 1928, founding the Berlin branch of the National Socialist High School Students’ League and becoming its national leader. In November 1931 the young Baltic emigre was appointed by Hitler to lead both the Hitler Youth and the Nazi Students’ League, a victory for the educated, middle-class elements in the Nazi youth movement over the earlier working-class and ideological orientation.
Von Renteln resigned from both his positions on 16 June 1932 and was replaced by Baldur von Schirach. In the same year he became head of the Nazi Kampjbund for small traders and in 1933 founded and led the Reichsstelle of German artisans, as well as being elected to the Reichstag as deputy for the electoral district of Potsdam. A defender of Mittelstand interests in the Third Reich, von Renteln was head of the Institute for Applied Economics, Chairman of the Disciplinary Court of the German Labour Front and President of the German Co-operative Union in Berlin. Appointed Generalkommissar in Lithuania in August 1941, von Renteln was on the Russian list of w anted war criminals.
Imprisoned at the end of the war, he was hanged by the Russians in 1946.