Ewald Latacz
Ewald Latacz was a Silesian politician. He practiced as a lawyer in Racibórz since 1913, and as a civil law notary since 1919. He also co-founded the Union of Upper Silesians, a movement dedicated to independence of Upper Silesia, in 1918.
He was active in the workers rights movement acting as a chairman of the Workers' Council in Wodzisław Śląski, and in independence movement of Upper Silesia. He co-founded the Union of Upper Silesians in 1919. Latacz was a political prisoner from January to Spring 1919.
He was accused by German authorities of high treason.
After his release, he became a civil law notary and lawyer in Berlin during 1922-1945, specialising in work with oil companies in the period 1922-39.
A member of the Nazi party since 1933, Latacz joined three months after Hitler came to power. Latacz was also a member of the Nazi Union of German Lawyers until the end of the Second World War. In 1940, he applied for, but failed to receive, the permission of Nazi German judicial authorities of Silesian Province to open law office in Upper Silesia.
Latacz so never returned to Upper Silesia, undergoing the denazification process in the Soviet occupation zone in 1945.
