Leopold Poetsch

Leopold Poetsch (or Pötsch) (18 November 1853 – 16 October 1942) was an Austrian history teacher. He was a school teacher of Adolf Hitler at the Linz high school. He influenced the future leader's later views, specifically German nationalism.

Hitler wrote about Poetsch in :

While touring Austria after the annexation of 1938, Hitler stopped at Klagenfurt to visit Poetsch. Poetsch revealed that he was a member of the underground Austrian SS which had been outlawed during Austria's independence. During this reunion, Hitler and Poetsch conversed in private for over an hour. Hitler would later confide to his traveling companions that, "You cannot imagine how much I owe to that old man."

He also took some distance from his former pupil, among other things since considering Hitler had become an enemy of Austria.