Draft:Joachim Freiherr von der Leyen

Joachim Freiherr von der Leyen (September 28, 1897 – 1945) was a German jurist and civil servant who worked as a district administrator during the Third Reich in occupied Czechoslovakia and Poland, and was involved in perpetrating the Holocaust as Kreishauptmann of the District of Galicia. He was born in Haus Meer, Büderich (Meerbusch) and is said to have died of gas poisoning after the bombing of Dresden.

Life
Von der Leyen comes from the baronial Bloemersheim branch of the von der Leyen family of Krefeld. His father, Friedrich Ludwig von der Leyen (born 1854), was mayor of Büderich and district administrator of Neuss and lived in Haus Meer Castle until his death in 1935.

Von der Leyen fought in the First World War from 1915–18 and was a member of a Freikorps from 1919–20. He was a member of the Young German Order, and from 1926–33, of Der Stahlhelm. He joined the NSDAP on February 1, 1940.

He studied law and passed examinations in 1926 and 1928. By 1933, he was a permanent representative of the Chief of Police in Uerdingen, and from April 1934, at the Police Headquarters of Wuppertal. After the dissolution of the rest of Czechoslovakia, he was appointed provisional chief district administrator of the District of Deutschbrod in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. In 1940 occupied France, von der Leyen was appointed head of the administrative department of the military administrative district in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. In July 1942, he became district captain in the district of Lemberg-Land in the District of Galicia. Von der Leyen inherited the Haus Meer Estate.

Von der Leyen was informed about, and participated in, the Holocaust; as were, and did, numerous other district administrators, chiefs, and miscellaneous officials in the District of Galicia.