Walther Kadow was a German school teacher who was murdered by Rudolf Höss and accomplices in May 1923 in the forest near Parchim

Parchim

Parchim is a town in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It is the capital of the Ludwigslust-Parchim district. It was the birthplace of Moltke, to whom a monument was erected in 1876. Founded about 1210, one branch of the family of the duke of Mecklenburg residence in Parchim during part of the 14th...

. Kadow was a communist, and was suspected of having betrayed German nationalist Albert Leo Schlageter

Albert Leo Schlageter

Albert Leo Schlageter was a member of the German Freikorps. His activities sabotaging French occupying troops after World War I led to his arrest and eventual execution by French forces. His death created an image of martyrdom around him, which was cultivated by German nationalist groups, in...

 to the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 occupation authorities in the Ruhr. Schlageter was executed by the French and was later regarded as a martyr by the Nazis. Höss received a ten-year sentence for the revenge killing, while his accomplice, Martin Bormann

Martin Bormann

Martin Ludwig Bormann was a prominent Nazi official. He became head of the Party Chancellery and private secretary to Adolf Hitler...

 (a former student of Kadow's), was sentenced to one year in prison for his part in the murder.

Bormann would later become Head of the Nazi Party Chancellery and private secretary to Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

. Höss later became commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp

Auschwitz concentration camp

Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...

.