Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler intervened to prevent a Jewish First World War veteran being sent to a death camp, a German Jewish newspaper has reported, according to Belfast Telegraph.

The quarterly Jewish Voice says that a newly discovered letter appears to show Hitler wanted Erich Hess to be spared persecution because the two had served in the same German army unit. Hess died in 1983.

The newspaper says the letter from the SS paramilitary organisation was discovered in official archives containing files the Nazi secret police, or Gestapo, kept on Jewish lawyers and judges.

Historian Susanne Mauss, who found the letter, told the Associated Press its authenticity is corroborated by other documents, including one owned by Hess' daughter Ursula.

Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust under Hitler's rule.