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Thomas Walther (born June 22, 1943 in Erfurt, Germany) is a retired German judge who currently practises as a lawyer and devotes part of his pension to investigating Nazi perpetrators. He is involved privately in collating both evidence and witness accounts, and representing co-plaintiffs in court. In his work as contemporary Nazi-hunter he gained prominence by facilitating the recent trial against John Demjanjuk and introducing an essential reinterpretation of German criminal law that created a precedent by allowing conviction of Demjanjuk as accessory to murder.

= Family Background and Early Life =

Walther was born in Erfurt, Germany on June 22, 1943 to general practitioner Erika Walther (née Schlepegrell, born 1909 in Uelzen, Germany) and construction contractor Rudolf Walther, Jr. (born 1896 in Erfurt, Germany).

His father was one of two children of Rudolf Walther, Sr. construction senator of Erfurt, Germany (in office 1908 until his forced retirement in 1933), who constructed and owned 33 Anger (Bismarckhaus)  which he loaned to Jewish entrepreneur Daniel Cohen of Erfurt.

In 1925, Rudolf Walther, Jr. (age 36), took over his father's construction firm (with about 300 permanent employees) to continue to bid for and win construction contracts in the Erfurt area and mainly adhered to Bauhaus architecture. One of the objects Rudolf, Jr. was responsible for was a ca. 300-flats apartment block in the Erfurt Hanseviertel neighbourhood (bordered by Flensburger Strasse), a privately owned property aimed at providing affordable housing in the aftermath of economic depression during the 1920s. Following violence during the progrom against Jews (Kristallnacht) on November 10, 1938, Rudolf Walther, Jr. housed his personal friends the Hollands and Bielschowskys (among others shoe manufacturer Fritz Bielschowsky of Cerf und Bielschowsky Dr. Diehl Schuhfabrik Erfurt, later Fred Biel in Australia) who had sought his support and stayed at the Walther property on Melchendorfer Strasse until their respective escapes to Paraguay and Sydney, Australia had been secured.

Shortly after the birth of Thomas in Erfurt, the Walthers relocated to nearby Tiefthal village to escape the threat of Allied air raids of German cities during World War II. Their decision to relocate deemed fortunate as their previous home on Melchendorfer Strasse, Erfurt, suffered a direct hit in 1944 / 1945? during an Allied bombing raid of Erfurt.

After Allied victory, Walther and his family moved back to Erfurt in 1948 to live in a residential property on Wieland Strasse, Erfurt (constructed by Rudolf Walther, Sr.) where Walther attended Zur Himmelspforte elementary school from September 1949 through the end of second grade in 1951.

After the war, Erfurt was located in the Soviet occupation zone and the parents of Walther were wary of Soviet indoctrination of their children - a fear they sustained from living under intellectual oppression from the Nazi regime. At the time, East Germans were subject to travel and emigration restrictions which made the endeavour Walther's parents pursued a difficult undertaking. In a first stage, Walther (at age six) and his mother Erika travelled to Uelzen, West Germany under the pretext of visiting Erika's mother. In her native Uelzen, Erika planned to revive her late father's practice to create an economic base for the family in the West. Walther and Erika shared initially a large residential property of Erika's parents with government-relocated refugees of the war, a policy common in post-war Germany in the face of dwelling shortage after destruction of the war. Erika's practice was located initially in the close confinements of this property. Following Walther's and Erika's absence from East Germany, Rudolf, Jr. and their only other child and Walther's brother, Eckhart gained no further permission for travel to the West. In 1952, Eckhart was led by Rudolf, Jr. and friends of the latter to an above-ground mining operation near Mühlhausen, Thuringia where he crossed to the West on foot through a railway tunnel serving trains shuttling between mining operations on both sides of the border. Lastly, Rudolf Walther, Jr. escaped in 1953 to the West on foot and partially aided by local guides, crossing the Harz mountain range and forests between Thuringia in the East and Lower Saxony in the West.

By April 1964, Walther had completed secondary education in Lüneburg, Germany gaining his Abitur certificate and completed mandatory military service in Göttingen, Germany by September 1965.

Following his personal interest in working in journalism, Walther sought education in the humanities and enrolled in October 1965 in German studies and literature at the University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany. Through his literary studies and exposure to the field, Walther realized his preference for more profession-oriented education in the humanities and changed in 1966 to the law program of the University of Hamburg. He remained largely at the University of Hamburg, with a short stay at the University of Würzburg, and graduated with a first Staatsexamen in law in 1972.

Following his first Staatsexamen, Walther sought political reprieve in moving away from Hamburg and followed personal relations to Bavaria, specifically the Lindau and Kempten areas, for the vocational part of his legal training. In this period between 1972 and 1974, he worked for Local District Courts, Regional Courts, Prosecutor Offices (of both Lindau, Germany and Kempten, Germany), and a law firm in Kempten, Germany.

In 1974 Walther took and passed the second Staatsexamen (equivalent of the bar examination) for Bavaria with the written examination in Augsburg, Germany and the oral examination in Munich, Germany which qualified him to practice law in Bavaria beginning on January 1, 1975.

= Professional Career =

Throughout his legal career, Walther remained in rural Bavaria, working as a judge of civil law of the Regional Court of Memmingen, Memmingen, Germany, prosecutor of criminal law of the Local District Court of Kempten, Kempten, Germany, and judge of criminal law of the Local District Court of Sonthofen, Sonthofen, Germany. At the time he was also appointed highest judge of agricultural law for the Allgäu region.

In his last professional relocation in Bavaria, he moved to Lindau, Germany where he practised as judge of the Local District Court of Lindau in civil law, criminal law, guardianship law, and criminal law for more severe cases (Schöffengericht).

= Work at the Central Office for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes =

Contribution to Demjanjuk Case
= Reinterpretation of German Criminal Law on Accessory to Murder =

= Media Coverage =

= References =