During the Nazi period, Zehlendorf's mayor was Walter Helfenstein (1890–1945), a convinced Nazi. Helfenstein was responsible for erecting a memorial to the antisemitic publisher Theodor Fritsch (1853–1933), described as "the first antisemitic memorial in Germany" in Zehlendorf in 1935. The memorial was the first memorial sculpted by the artist Arthur Wellmann (1885–1960), who was a Zehlendorf resident (and who, after producing other Nazi memorials, including one to the SA, eventually emigrated to the United States). The Fritsch memorial was melted down in 1943 to make armaments for the war.W. Benz, B. Mihok, et al. – Literatur, Film, Theater und Kunst Theodor-Fritsch Denkmal (Berlin, 1935–1943 (De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2014) Mayor Helfenstein committed suicide on 24 April 1945 as the Red Army took Berlin. Helfenstein's death is referred to in the novel Berlin by the anti-Nazi novelist Theodor Plievier.
