Josef Wagner (Gauleiter)

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Josef Wagner
State Secretary of the Four Year Plan
In office
15 January 1941 – 9 November 1941
Preceded byPosition established
Succeeded byPosition abolished
Personal details
Born(1899-01-12)12 January 1899
Alsace-Lorraine, German Empire
Died22 April or 2 May 1945 (aged 46)
Berlin, Germany
Political partyNazi Party
Other political
affiliations		Völkisch-Social Bloc
ProfessionTeacher
Military service
Allegiance German Empire
Branch/serviceImperial German Army
Years of service1917–1918
UnitReserve Infantry Regiment 65
Battles/warsWorld War I
Wielkopolska, Weiss from Jarocin
.

Josef Wagner (12 January 1899 – 22 April or 2 May 1945) was from 1931 the Nazi Gauleiter of Gau Westphalia-South and, as of December 1934, also of Gau Silesia. In 1941 he was dismissed from his offices, then expelled from the Nazi Party (NSDAP), imprisoned by the Gestapo, and likely executed around the time of end of the war in Europe.

Early life and First World War

Wagner was born in Algringen (today,

Etampes disguised in a French officer's uniform.[1] He returned to Germany in August 1919, by way of Switzerland, completed his last year of training at a teacher seminary in Fulda and passed his teaching examinations in October 1920. Unable to find a teaching position, he was then employed a finance official in Fulda. In July 1921 he became a clerical office worker at the Bochum Association for Cast Steel Production and worked there until April 1927.[2]

Early Nazi career, 1922 to 1932

Wagner joined the Nazi Party quite early on, in 1922 (membership number 16,951) and co-founded the local NSDAP branch in Bochum, becoming its first Ortsgruppenleiter (Local Group Leader). As an Alter Kämpfer (Old Fighter) he eventually would be awarded the Golden Party Badge.[3] When the Nazi Party was outlawed in the wake of the Beer Hall Putsch in November 1923, Wagner joined the Völkisch-Social Bloc, a Nazi-oriented electoral alliance, becoming its leader in the Westphalia Industrial District. When the Nazi Party was re-established in February 1925, Wagner rejoined and resumed his position as the local leader in Bochum, advancing in 1926 to the position of Bezirksleiter (District Leader). In May 1927, he found employment as a teacher at the Volksschule Horst-Emscher and then at the Gelsenkirchen branch, from which he was fired in November 1927 for political activity.[2]

On 20 May 1928 he was elected as one of the first 12 Nazi deputies to the Reichstag in Berlin. He would continue to be elected to the Reichstag for electoral constituency 18, Westphalia-South, in every subsequent election in the Weimar and Nazi regimes. On 1 October 1928, when the large Gau Ruhr was split up, he was appointed Gauleiter of the newly formed Gau of Westphalia, and after this Gau was split in two on 1 January 1931, he remained Gauleiter of Gau Westphalia-South, whose seat was in Bochum. In 1930, he founded a weekly Nazi newspaper, Westfalenwacht (Westphalia Awakes); this was followed in 1931 by a daily paper, Rote Erde (Red Earth). In 1932 he founded the Hochschule für Politik (Academy for Politics) of the NSDAP, becoming its leader.[4]

Height of power, 1933 to 1941

After the

Minister-President Hermann Göring. On 25 September 1933, Wagner joined the Sturmabteilung (SA) with the rank of SA-Gruppenführer and was assigned to the SA Westphalia Group. In October 1933, he was made a member of the Academy for German Law. In 1934 he was made a member of the Prussian Provincial Council for Westphalia.[5]

On 12 December 1934, after the removal of Helmuth Brückner, Wagner was also appointed as Gauleiter of Gau Silesia with its capital at Breslau (today Wrocław, Poland). Retaining his Gauleiter position in Westphalia-South, he was one of only a very few Gauleiters to simultaneously head two Gaue. In addition, he succeeded Brückner as Oberpräsident (High President) of the Prussian provinces of Lower Silesia and Upper Silesia. He thus united under his control the highest party and governmental offices in the two provinces. After the two provinces were united into the Province of Silesia on 1 April 1938, Wagner became its Oberpräsident until the province was split again on 27 January 1941. From 12 June 1935 he also served as the President of the Prussian Provincial Council for both Silesian provinces and, during their union, for the united Silesia.[6]

On 29 October 1936, Wagner was appointed

Wehrkreis (Military District) VIII, which included not only Gau Silesia, but the eastern sections of Reichsgau Sudetenland. It was headquartered in Breslau.[7] In this position, he had responsibility for civil defense and evacuation measures, as well as administration of wartime rationing and suppression of black market
activity.

After the conquest of Poland on 8 October 1939, Germany annexed large parts of the country, with East Upper Silesia being made part of Wagner's Gau of Silesia. Two days later, Wagner conferred with Adolf Eichmann who outlined the ruthless Nisko Plan to deport an estimated 70,000 to 80,000 Jews to the Lublin District. Wagner agreed to cooperate with the plan and the first deportations began on 20 October from Kattowitz (today, Katowice). Deportations continued until early 1940, aimed at expropriating Jews and Poles, and resettling the area with Germans.[8]

On 20 April 1940 Wagner was made an Obergruppenführer in the

State Secretary) to Göring in the Four Year Plan.[9]

Dismissal, trial and death

Wagner, now at the peak of his career, had made powerful enemies, including

Party Chancellery. In addition, his Deputy Gauleiter in Silesia, Fritz Bracht, was plotting against him.[10] Bormann began agitating for Wagner's removal as Gauleiter of Silesia as early as December 1939, using the large increase in territory and population resulting from the annexed Polish lands to justify dividing the large Gau. Adolf Hitler at first was hesitant but was eventually persuaded.[11] On 9 January 1941, Wagner was removed as Gauleiter of Gau Silesia and it was divided into two separate Gaue on 27 January. Bracht succeeded him in Gau Upper Silesia and Karl Hanke in Gau Lower Silesia. Wagner was also replaced as Oberpräsident, with Bracht and Hanke succeeding him in this capacity in the two new provinces of Upper and Lower Silesia.[6]

Bormann, one of the most rabidly anti-religious Nazis, opposed Wagner who was known to be a

Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler who had left the Church. All this ran counter to the Nazi anti-Catholic doctrine, and Bormann used it to attack Wagner.[13]

Subsequently, on 9 November 1941 at the annual Beer Hall Putsch anniversary celebration in

Roehm Purge.[16] On 26 November, Wagner was also expelled from the Reichstag.[17]

On Hitler's orders, Wagner subsequently was brought up on charges before the Supreme Party Court, which was headed by Walter Buch, and which had jurisdiction over matters of Party membership. Wagner put up a persuasive defense and, surprisingly, in a 6 February 1942 decision, the Court acquitted him and refused to expel him from the Party. This infuriated Bormann and Hitler who refused to endorse the decision. The matter, however, was allowed to simmer over the spring and summer until the autumn when Hitler summoned Buch to his headquarters, furiously berated him, and ordered him to reverse the decision immediately. That same day, Buch wrote to Wagner expelling him from the Party effective forthwith, 12 October 1942.[18][19]

At the direction of Himmler, Wagner was placed under

Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse in Berlin.[21]

The circumstances of Wagner's death are unclear. The most widely accepted account is that he was hanged by the Gestapo in the closing weeks of the war on 22 April 1945. An observer allegedly informed the family of the execution the same month.[22] An alternative version by a fellow prisoner claims that Wagner survived until the prison was liberated by Red Army forces on 2 May, but was accidentally shot by a Russian soldier.[23]

Selected works

  • Leitfaden der Hochschule für Politik der NSDAP, Munich 1933, published by the Hochschule für Politik der NSDAP (editor)
  • Die Reichsindexziffer der Lebenshaltungskosten. Ein Beitrag zu ihrer Reform (diss. rer. pol. Munich 1935), Würzburg 1935
  • Die Preispolitik im Vierjahresplan (Kiel discourses 51), Jena 1938
  • Gesunde Preispolitik, Dortmund 1938

References

  1. ^ Höffkes 1986, p. 367.
  2. ^ a b Miller & Schulz 2021, p. 555.
  3. ^ Miller & Schulz 2021, p. 565.
  4. ^ Miller & Schulz 2021, pp. 555–556.
  5. ^ Miller & Schulz 2021, pp. 556–557.
  6. ^ a b Miller & Schulz 2021, p. 557.
  7. ^ Miller & Schulz 2021, pp. 558–559.
  8. ^ Miller & Schulz 2021, p. 560.
  9. ^ Miller & Schulz 2021, p. 561.
  10. ^ Orlow 1973, p. 270.
  11. ^ Lang 1979, p. 288.
  12. ^ McKale 1974, p. 178.
  13. ^ Lang 1979, pp. 289–290.
  14. ^ Peter Hüttenberger: Die Gauleiter. Berlin 1969. p. 143
  15. ^ Lang 1979, p. 290.
  16. ^ Miller & Schulz 2012, p. 233.
  17. ^ Miller & Schulz 2021, p. 563.
  18. ^ Detlef Mühlberger, Hitler's Voice: Organisation & development of the Nazi Party, Peter Lang, 2004, p. 224.
  19. ^ McKale 1974, pp. 178–180.
  20. ^ Peter Hoffmann, Behind Valkyrie: German Resistance to Hitler, Documents, McGill-Queen's Press, 2011, p. 326.
  21. ^ Miller & Schulz 2021, p. 564.
  22. ^ Miller & Schulz 2021, p. 554.
  23. ISBN 978-0-14-103239-9

Sources

External links
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