33 Facts About Adolf Wagner

Adolf Wagner was a Nazi Party official and politician who served as the Party's Gauleiter in Munich and as the powerful Interior Minister of Bavaria throughout most of the Third Reich.

Adolf Wagner received his certification as a mining engineer in 1914 but when the First World War broke out he volunteered for service with the Imperial German Army.

Adolf Wagner was assigned to Infantry Regiment 135 as a non-commissioned officer on the western front, was commissioned a Leutnant in 1917 and served as a company commander and as an orderly officer at regimental headquarters.

Adolf Wagner was twice wounded, first by poison gas and in 1918 he lost his right leg below the knee.

Adolf Wagner was awarded the Iron Cross, 1st and 2nd class, and was discharged at the end of the war in 1918.

Adolf Wagner returned to Lorraine after the war but in 1919 was expelled by the French authorities when the area was returned to France under the terms of the Versailles Treaty.

Adolf Wagner moved to Bavaria and found employment as a manager at the United Coal and Ore Mining Union in Erbendorf.

Adolf Wagner later worked as a business manager at the Pinzgau Mining Company across the Bavarian border in Austria.

Adolf Wagner was employed at these companies from 1919 to 1929.

Adolf Wagner joined the Nazi Party in 1923 and became the Ortsgruppenleiter in Erbendorf.

Adolf Wagner participated in the abortive Beer Hall Putsch of 9 November 1923, for which he earned the Blood Order.

Also, Adolf Wagner was given the honorary title of Speaker of the Party, a special designation that entitled him to read the Fuhrers proclamations at public events such as the annual Nazi Party rally held in Nuremberg.

On 10 March 1933, when the Nazis seized control of the Bavarian state government, Adolf Wagner was sent by Hitler to take charge of the Bavarian police apparatus as the State Commissioner for the Bavarian Interior Ministry.

Adolf Wagner advocated the establishment of special protective custody facilities that resulted in Heinrich Himmler, then Acting Police President in Munich, soon setting up the first Nazi concentration camp in Dachau.

On 23 March, Adolf Wagner was made a member of the Sturmabteilung with the rank of SA-Gruppenfuhrer and he would be promoted to SA-Obergruppenfuhrer on 9 November 1937.

Adolf Wagner thus wielded enormous power in both the party and the government, despite nominally reporting to Reichsstatthalter Franz Ritter von Epp.

Adolf Wagner was elected a deputy to the Reichstag in November 1933 for electoral constituency 24, Upper Bavaria-Swabia.

In May 1934, Adolf Wagner secured an appointment on the staff of Deputy Fuhrer, Rudolf Hess to head a task force charged with reform of the Reich structure.

An opponent of federalism, Adolf Wagner advocated for more centralized control by the Party.

Adolf Wagner played a key role during the purge of the SA leaders known as the Night of the Long Knives on 30 June 1934.

When Hitler arrived in Munich, he found that Adolf Wagner had already arrested the leaders of the Munich SA.

Adolf Wagner had set up patrols at the Munich railway station to check for wanted SA leaders as they arrived in the city.

Later that day, when the governor of the Stadelheim prison refused to hand over six SA leaders to the SS execution squad because the list of names he received was unsigned, Adolf Wagner signed the document in his capacity as Bavarian Interior Minister, and the six were turned over to the SS and summarily executed.

In carrying out the Nazi Party's antisemitic policies, Adolf Wagner instigated and organized violent anti-Jewish demonstrations in the city center of Munich in May 1935 that were carried out by a mob of about 200 members of the SA and the SS.

Confident of his close ties with Hitler, Adolf Wagner openly boasted that he often ignored directives from Reichsministers, and that if they wanted to consult with him on issues, they would have to schedule a visit to Munich.

Adolf Wagner generally had access to Hitler, and could appeal directly to him for support when conflicts arose with other officials, as he was often among the circle of intimates invited to Hitler's residence on the Obersalzberg.

Adolf Wagner can be seen talking with Hitler on the terrace of Hitler's Bavarian residence the Berghof, near Berchtesgaden.

At the outbreak of the Second World War on 1 September 1939, Adolf Wagner was named Reich Defense Commissioner for Wehrkreise VII and XIII.

Adolf Wagner was the only Commissioner named to head two districts.

Adolf Wagner's jurisdiction included his Gau and four other Bavarian Gaue as well as the northwestern section of Reichsgau Sudetenland.

In June 1942 Adolf Wagner was still recuperating and was replaced in his official duties by Paul Giesler in an acting capacity on 23 June.

Adolf Wagner nominally remained in his posts until a second stroke resulted in his death on 12 April 1944, at which time Giesler was named his permanent successor.

Adolf Wagner was buried near the Ehrentempel which housed the remains of those killed in the Beer Hall Putsch.