Hans Latza

Who was Hans Latza?

Hans Latza was a German SS-Obersturmbannführer. He served as SS-judge in Munich from 1939 to 1940, in Prague in 1940, and in Oslo from 1940 to 1945. Latza was the principal judge at SS- und Polizeigerat in Norway. He was responsible for more than 25 death sentences. In the legal purge in Norway after World War II Latze and two co-judges were prosecuted for war crimes for their role when five persons had been sentenced to death in a court-martial reprisal following the assassination of police chief Karl Marthinsen, but Latza was acquitted by the Supreme Court in 1948.