Josef Wagner (Gauleiter)
Josef Wagner (12 January 1899 – 22 April or 2 May 1945) was from 1928 the Nazi Gauleiter of the Gau of Westphalia-South, and as of January 1935 also of the Gau of Silesia. In 1942 he was expelled from the Nazi Party (NSDAP) and imprisoned by the Gestapo, dying at some point in 1945.
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Early life and First World War
Josef Wagner was born in Algrange, Alsace-Lorraine, to miner Nikolaus Wagner. Beginning in the summer of 1913 he went to the teachers' seminary in Wittlich, and as of June 1917 he was a soldier at the Western Front during the First World War. There he ended up as a prisoner of war of the French, but managed to escape in 1918. In 1919 he returned to Germany by way of Switzerland. He ended his training as a Volksschule teacher and first worked as a finance official in Fulda, and by 1921 at the Bochumer Verein.
Joining the Nazis
Wagner joined the Nazi Party quite early on, in 1922, and founded the NSDAP local (Ortsgruppe) in Bochum. In 1927, he was a Volksschule teacher at the Volksschule Horst-Emscher – and by 1928 at the Gelsenkirchen branch – from which he was fired for political reasons. In 1928, he was appointed Gauleiter of the Gau of Westphalia, and after the Gau was split in two in 1931, he was given the office of Gauleiter of Westphalia-South, whose seat was in Bochum. From 1928 to 1930, Wagner was among the NSDAP's first twelve members of the Reichstag in Berlin.
Career in the time of the Third Reich
Beginning in 1934, Wagner – who had been a Prussian State Councillor since 1933 – also led the Gau of Silesia in Breslau (nowadays Wrocław, Poland). He was appointed High President (Oberpräsident) of the Prussian province of Lower Silesia in Breslau, and furthermore administered the Upper Silesian High President's business. After Silesia was reunited into one province, Wagner became its High President in 1938, until the province was split again in January 1941.
On 29 October 1936, Wagner was appointed Reichskommissar for Pricing. From the outbreak of the Second World War on 1 September 1939 he was also Reich Defence Commissar for Silesia (Defence District VIII).
Dismissal and death
On 9 November 1941, Wagner resigned his post as Gauleiter. This action stemmed from a letter from Wagner's wife to their daughter which had come to official attention. The Wagners were Catholics,[1] and she disapproved of her daughter's planned marriage to a non-Catholic SS man on religious grounds. His successor as NSDAP Gauleiter was Fritz Bracht. On 12 October 1942 Wagner was dismissed from all his posts and expelled from the Nazi Party.[1]
First, Wagner moved back to Bochum and lived there. Suspected of involvement in the attempt on Hitler's life at the Wolf's Lair 20 July 1944, he was arrested by the Gestapo after its failure. His name had appeared in a document prepared by the conspirators. It referred to "upright and capable" individuals who should be approached to be "convinced of the necessity of such a step and to support it. e.g. Gauleiter Wagner."[2] The circumstances of his death in 1945 are unclear. Either he was put to death by the SS in Berlin, or he was shot by a Soviet soldier.
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
External links
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- Interlanguage link template link number
- 1899 births
- 1945 deaths
- People from Algrange
- People from Alsace-Lorraine
- Lorraine-German people
- German Nazi politicians
- Nazi leaders
- Gauleiters
- Members of the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic
- Members of the Reichstag of Nazi Germany
- Nazis who served in World War I
- Recipients of the Golden Party Badge
