Josef Wagner (Gauleiter)

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.

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. 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 in every subsequent election in the Weimar and Nazi regimes. On 1 October 1928, when the 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 was given the office of Gauleiter of Gau Westphalia-South, whose seat was in Bochum.

After the Nazi seizure of power in January 1933, Wagner was appointed to the Prussian State Council on 1 September. Then on 6 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 also succeeded Bruckner 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. On 29 October 1936, Wagner was appointed Reichskommissar for Pricing, a high position in Hermann Göring's Four Year Plan. On the outbreak of the Second World War on 1 September 1939 he was named Reich Defense Commissioner for Wehrkreis (Military District) VIII, which included not only Gau Silesia, but the eastern sections of Reichsgau Sudetenland. It was headquartered in Breslau.[1]

Wagner, now at the peak of his career, had made powerful enemies, including Heinrich Himmler and Martin Bormann. In addition, his Deputy Gauleiter in Silesia, Fritz Bracht, was intriguing against him.[2] 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 removed as Oberpräsident, with Bracht and Hanke succeeding him in this capacity in the two new provinces of Upper and Lower Silesia.

Subsequently, on 9 November 1941, Wagner was also dismissed as Gauleiter of Gau Westphalia-South directly by Adolf Hitler.[3] This outcome was due to a letter Wagner's wife had sent to their daughter, which had come to official attention. The Wagners were Catholics,[4] and she disapproved of, and forbade, her daughter's planned marriage to a non-Catholic SS man on religious grounds. Wagner's successor as Gauleiter in Westphalia-South was Paul Giesler. Wagner was brought up on charges before the Party's High Court, and expelled from the Party on 12 October 1942.[4]

Wagner moved back to Bochum and lived there. Later when suspected of involvement in the attempt on Hitler's life at the Wolf's Lair on 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."[5] The circumstances of his death in late April 1945 are unclear. Most likely, he was put to death by the Gestapo in Berlin[6] though he may have died from an accidental discharge of a Red Army firearm.[7]

• 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

• Brief biography and photo (in German)
• Online-Biography of Josef Wagner
• Newspaper clippings about Josef Wagner in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW