Wilhelm Murr
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Wilhelm Murr (born 16 December 1888 in Esslingen am Neckar; died 14 May 1945 in Egg, Vorarlberg, Austria by suicide with poison while in French custody) was a Nazi politician. From February 1928 until his death he was the Nazi Gauleiter in Württemberg-Hohenzollern, and from March to May 1933 also State President and Reich Governor in Württemberg.
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[edit] Life
Murr grew up in Esslingen in poverty, and at the age of 14, he lost both his parents. He went to the Volksschule up to the 7th class. After undergoing training as a salesman and then working as such, he did military service from 1908 to 1910, and then worked in sales at the Maschinenfabrik Esslingen (a builder mainly of railway rolling stock and related products). In the First World War, he was deployed at all fronts, reaching the rank of Vizefeldwebel ("vice-sergeant"), and he saw the end of the war in 1918 as a wounded soldier in a field hospital in Cottbus.
Murr became involved in the Deutschnationaler Handlungsgehilfen-Verband ("German National Trade Assistants' Union"; DHV), a völkisch, rightwing, anti-Semitic employees' union that Murr had already joined even before the war. There he came into contact with the anti-Semite Theodor Fritsch's writings, taking many of his views to heart. He joined the NSDAP in the summer of 1923, and after the Party was temporarily banned, he joined once again in August 1925. At his workplace, the Maschinenfabrik Esslingen, he eagerly recruited new comrades for the struggle. A workers' newspaper criticized him in September 1927, saying that Murr's only job there was "to smuggle Hakenkreuzler (≈ 'crooked-cross devotees') into the works". It was also at this time that Murr got to know Richard Drauz, the later Nazi Kreisleiter of Heilbronn, whom Murr later often protected.
After much fierce party infighting, Esslingen NSDAP local head Murr, who in this, as well as in other matters later, stood out with his ruthless and unscrupulous methods, finally managed to drive the sitting NSDAP Gauleiter Eugen Munder from power. In February 1928, Adolf Hitler appointed him NSDAP Gauleiter in Württemberg-Hohenzollern. One of his rivals, whom at that time he managed to oust, was the later Württemberg premier (Ministerpräsident) Christian Mergenthaler, who time and again lost out to Murr in later power struggles. By strict subordination to Hitler and the Party, Murr found it possible to secure his position in Württemberg. In October 1930, he gave up his job at the machine factory and began working full-time for the Party. The NSDAP's membership numbers and financial situation were getting better. From early 1931, Murr managed to bring out his own propaganda sheet, the NS-Kurier, in which, until 1945, he published many lead articles which, although not dazzlingly brilliant, faithfully expressed the Party line.
In the elections in autumn 1930, Murr was elected a member of the Reichstag for the NSDAP in electoral district 31 (Württemberg). After the Nazis seized power, the Württemberg Landtag chose him, under Nazi pressure, as Württemberg's new State President, thereby leading Murr to succeed his own political foe, Eugen Bolz.
Murr likewise took over the Interior and Economy Ministry. On 6 May 1933, Murr was appointed to the newly created position of Reichsstatthalter (Reich Governor) in Württemberg; the office of Württemberg State President was abolished and the Landtag bereft of any function. His rival Mergenthaler, since early 1932 already Landtag president, became Ministerpräsident as well as Culture and Justice Minister. Murr's obvious intellectual shortcomings were embellished to make him seem down-to-earth, like "a man of the people" as the official propaganda about the governor put it. On the other hand, Joseph Goebbels described Murr in a diary entry from 31 July 1933 as a "parvenu".
When Murr found out in 1938 that the Bishop of Rottenburg, Johannes Baptista Sproll, had not taken part in the plebiscite on Austria's union with Germany on 10 April, he initiated a campaign with newspaper articles and organized demonstrations against Sproll, prompting the authorities to rebuke the bishop and drive him out of the province to Bavaria.
When the war began in September 1939, Murr was appointed Reich Defence Commissar in Defence District V, which brought him more power. Important sectors of the military and the civil government now stood directly under him, or at least de facto had to make arrangements with him. Without Murr's or his agent's approval, practically nothing more could happen in Württemberg. The murder carried out against Jews and the mentally ill could go ahead smoothly in Württemberg thanks to Murr's unconditionally carrying out the Führer's and the Party's orders.
After the growing number of air raids on Stuttgart, Murr had the first inkling in 1943 of a nasty end. He did prepare evacuation measures for Stuttgart, but never told anyone about them, publicly remaining Hitler's and Goebbels's loyal spokesman. Even when late in January 1944 Murr's only son Winfried, deployed with the Waffen-SS in Belgium, shot himself at the age of 21 to forestall court-martial proceedings against him for rape, Murr did not bring his unquestioning loyalty towards Hitler into question, and assured Hitler on 1 March that he would continue in his service.
[edit] The war's end and afterwards
The evacuation plans, which were made known in December 1944, and which foresaw sending Stuttgart's population on 20-km day marches towards the southeast, and also destroying the city, Murr chose to give up in March 1945. On 10 April he was still calling for the city's defence no matter what it took, and on 13 April he forbade the destruction of tank traps and the raising of white flags, on pain of execution and Sippenhaftung (detention and punishment of kin). Nevertheless, Murr himself fled Stuttgart on 19 April under a false name together with his wife and other companions. By way of the former monastery near Schelklingen, Kißlegg, Wangen im Allgäu, Kressbronn am Bodensee and further stops along the way, they at last found refuge in the Großes Walsertal in Vorarlberg. Murr, his wife, and two adjutants stayed at the Biberacher Hütte until 12 May, then moving into an alpine cabin overlooking Schröcken. There on 13 May, they were arrested by French troops to whom Murr identified himself as "Walter Müller". The arrestees were first taken to Schoppernau, then to Egg in Vorarlberg, where first Murr's wife and then Murr himself killed themselves with poison ampoules that they had brought along. They were both buried in the graveyard at Egg.
The American occupiers had put Murr on their List of Potential War Criminals under Proposed US Policy Directives and were searching for him. The Americans and the French soon came to suspect that Murr might be dead, and with the Württemberg police found evidence that led them to Egg. On 16 April 1946, "Walter Müller's" and his wife's grave was opened. Murr's former dentist managed to identify him by his bite.
[edit] Literature
- Sauer, Paul: Wilhelm Murr. Hitlers Statthalter in Württemberg. Silberburg-Verlag, Tübingen 1998, ISBN 3-87407-282-7
- Scholtyseck, Joachim: „Der Mann aus dem Volk“ : Wilhelm Murr, Gauleiter und Reichsstatthalter in Württemberg-Hohenzollern. In: Die Führer der Provinz: NS-Biographien aus Baden und Württemberg / hrsg. von Michael Kissener und Joachim Scholtyseck. – 2. Aufl., Studienausg. – Konstanz : UVK, Univ.-Verl. Konstanz, 1999 (Karlsruher Beiträge zur Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus ; Bd. 2), S. 477–502, 878, ISBN 3-87940-679-0 [ISBN 3-87940-566-2 (1. Aufl.)]
