Erich Kästner (World War I veteran), Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
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Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Schönefeld, Leipzig District, Germany
About Erich Kästner (World War I veteran)
- Erich Kästner (10 March 1900 – 1 January 2008) was the last documented World War I veteran who fought for the German Empire (including all nationalities and ethnic groups) and the last who was born in Germany.
- Consequently he was the last Central Powers combatant of the Western Front.
- He was also the second oldest man in Germany.
- However, he was not the last veteran living in Germany.
- Franz Künstler was an ethnic German who was born in and fought for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, migrating to Germany in 1946 and subsequently becoming a German citizen. Born in Leipzig-Schönefeld in 1900, Kästner joined the German Army in July 1918, in the "Sonder-Bataillon Hauck" (unsure information), and served on the Western Front in Flanders.
- He rejoined the military in 1939 and during the Second World War was a Major serving as ground support for the Luftwaffe, mostly in France.Kästner earned a doctorate in law from University of Jena in 1924 with a dissertation on Das landwirtschaftliche Pachtwesen und die Pachtschutzordnung unter besonderer Beleuchtung der Verhältnisse des früheren Großherzogtums Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach (The agricultural leasehold system and the Leasehold Protection Act with special regard to the situation in the former Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach).
- He subsequently worked as a judge at the Higher Regional Court (Oberlandesgericht), for which work he was awarded the Lower Saxony Merit Cross, 1st Class.
- Kästner was also honored by Germany's president for his 75-year marriage to his wife Maria, shortly before her death in 2003 at the age of 102.
- Both had lived in Hannover since 1945.
- Some months before his death, he moved to a retirement home in Pulheim near Cologne.
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