Ludwig Siebert (17 October 1874 –1 November 1942) was a German lawyer and Nazi Party politician who served as the Minister President of Bavaria in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1942.
Siebert was born in Ludwigshafen in the Palatinate,the son of a locomotive engineer. He attended the gymnasium in Mannheim and studied law at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich from 1893 to 1897. After passing his legal examination in 1900 he worked in the civil service as a lawyer in Frankenthal (Pfalz) and became the public prosecutor in Bad Dürkheim and Neustadt an der Haardt (today,Neustadt an der Weinstraße). From 1905 to 1906 he worked as the public prosecutor of Fürth in Middle Franconia. In 1907 he became a magistrate in Lindau on Lake Constance. A member of the Bavarian People's Party (BVP),he joined the City Council of the city of Rothenburg ob der Tauber and was the Bürgermeister (Mayor) there from 1908 to 1919. [1] Siebert was elected Bürgermeister of Lindau in 1919 and Oberbürgermeister (Lord Mayor) in 1924. [2]
In the 14 September 1930 Reichstag election,Lindau was the only large town in southern Bavaria in which the Nazis became the largest party,with 22.1% of the vote. In January 1931,Siebert left the BVP and joined the Nazi Party (membership number 356,673) becoming the first Nazi Lord Mayor in Bavaria. The Nazis,conscious of the prestige this brought them,exploited Siebert's propaganda value by employing him as a public speaker on their behalf at numerous public meetings throughout Bavaria. On 27 January 1931,he addressed a crowd of 1,750 in Lindau that was the largest political meeting ever recorded in the town at that time. [3]
On 24 April 1932,Siebert was elected as a Nazi Party member of the Bavarian Landtag where he sat until its dissolution in October 1933. On 10 March 1933,during the Nazi takeover of the state administration,he was named a representative of Bavaria to the Reichsrat until it was abolished on 14 February 1934. [4] Also on 10 March,he was named Staatskommissar (State Commissioner) for the Bavarian Ministry of Finance in the administration of Franz Ritter von Epp,the Reichskommissar appointed by the central government. On 16 March,Siebert was formally named Finance Minister in the provisional Council of Ministers,formed by Epp after the forced resignation of Minister-President Heinrich Held of the BVP. On 12 April 1933,after Epp was installed as the Reichsstatthalter (Reich Governor) for Bavaria,Siebert was appointed to succeed him as Minister-President. [5] He retained the office of Finance Minister and,on 28 June 1933,he also assumed the portfolio of Minister of Economic Affairs until March 1934 when he was succeeded in this post by Hermann Esser. [6]
In May 1933,Siebert officiated at the grand opening in Passau of the Ostmarkmuseum (today,the Oberhausmuseum in the Veste Oberhaus fortress). [7] He was a member of Hans Frank's Academy for German Law from its inaugural meeting on 2 October 1933. On 12 November 1933,he was elected as a member of the Reichstag from electoral constituency 24 (Upper Bavaria and Swabia) and served until his death. [8]
In March 1935,Siebert became head of the Bayerische Staatskanzlei and,from 28 November 1936,he again acted as Economics Minister. He initiated the so-called "Siebert Program" to fight unemployment in Bavaria. The program turned out to be insufficient to create new employment due to lack of funds within the Bavarian government and support from the German central government. [9] Siebert also had personal orders from Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler to oversee the restoration of all castles in Germany and was especially involved in the restoration of the historical town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber between 1937 and 1941. [10]
As Minister-President,Siebert did not have the power and authority his predecessors had under the Weimar Republic,as he had to share power with Epp. Also,he often found himself at odds with Adolf Wagner,the Gauleiter in Munich and the Bavarian Interior Minister. Wagner considered himself the "strongman" of the government and was resentful that he was not given the leading role as Minister-President. As one of the Alter Kämpfer (Old Fighters),he often was able to secure Hitler's support in his disputes with Siebert. [11] Siebert,along with Epp,was disadvantaged by his lack of a powerful position in the Party hierarchy. As such,he had difficulty asserting his authority over other Party officials in Bavaria,in particular,powerful Gauleiter Julius Streicher and Josef Bürckel who ran their Gaue with a high degree of autonomy and were contemptuous of the government authorities. Furthermore,Siebert was hampered by his lack of command authority over the Party's paramilitary units in Bavaria,the SA and the SS,which were tightly controlled by Ernst Röhm (and his successors) and Heinrich Himmler,respectively. [12]
From 1933 until his death,Siebert was chairman of the Supervisory Board (Aufsichtsrat) of the Bayerische Berg-,Hütten- und Salzwerke AG (Bavarian Mining,Metallurgical and Salt Works). [13] After the Anschluss of 1938,Siebert also served as a member of the Supervisory Board of Alpine Montanbetrieb AG Hermann Göring in Linz,part of the massive Reichswerke Hermann Göring . He also was chairman of the Supervisory Board of Bayerischer Lloyd Schiffahrts (Lloyd Bavarian Shipping) in Regensburg. In March 1939,Siebert was made president of the Deutsche Akademie ,a German cultural institute and the precursor of the Goethe-Institut. [14] Siebert's tenure saw an increasing politicization of the organization when it was officially placed under the auspices of the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda and its operations abroad were overseen by Reichsminister Joseph Goebbels. [15]
After the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939,Siebert was made a member of the Reich Defense Committees for Wehrkreise (Military Districts) VII and XIII,which encompassed Bavaria. A member of the SA,Siebert was promoted to SA- Gruppenführer on 9 November 1933 and SA- Obergruppenführer on 9 November 1938. On 12 April 1938,on the fifth anniversary of his assuming the leadership of the government of Bavaria,Siebert was awarded the Golden Party Badge. [16] He died of a heart attack on 1 November 1942 and was given a lavish state funeral in Munich. [17]
Siebert's younger brother,Friedrich Siebert (1888–1950),was a professional soldier who rose to the rank of General der Infanterie in the Wehrmacht and served as a division and corps commander during the Second World War. Siebert's son,Friedrich "Fritz" Siebert (1903–1966),was also a lawyer and Nazi politician who,like his father,served as Bürgermeister of Lindau (1933 –1939). He was an SS- Oberführer and served as an administrative official in the General Government. After the end of the war,in 1948 he was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment in Poland but was released in 1956. [20]
Gregor Strasser was a German politician and early leader of the Nazi Party. Along with his younger brother Otto,he was a leading member of the party's left-wing faction,which brought them into conflict with the dominant faction led by Adolf Hitler,resulting in his murder in 1934. The brothers' strand of the Nazi ideology is known as Strasserism.
The Bavarian People's Party was a Catholic political party in Bavaria during the Weimar Republic. After the collapse of the German Empire in 1918,it split away from the national-level Catholic Centre Party and formed the BVP in order to pursue a more conservative and particularist Bavarian course. It consistently had more seats in the Bavarian state parliament than any other party and provided all Bavarian minister presidents from 1920 on. In the national Reichstag it remained a minor player with only about three percent of total votes in all elections. The BVP disbanded shortly after the Nazi seizure of power in early 1933.
Hermann Esser was an early member of the Nazi Party (NSDAP). A journalist,Esser was the editor of the Nazi paper,Völkischer Beobachter,a Propaganda Leader,and a Vice President of the Reichstag. In the early days of the party,he was a de facto deputy of Adolf Hitler. As one of Hitler's earliest followers and friends,he held influential positions in the party during the Weimar Republic,but increasingly lost influence during the Nazi era.
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.
Hans Schemm was an educator who became a prominent Nazi Party official. He served as Gauleiter of Gau Bayreuth and Bavarian State Minister for Education and Culture until his death in an airplane accident.
Paul Giesler was a German Nazi Party politician and SA-Obergruppenführer. From 1941,he was the Gauleiter of Westphalia-South,and he was appointed to the same position for the Gau Munich-Upper Bavaria in 1942. From 2 November 1942 to 28 April 1945,he was also Ministerpräsident of Bavaria. He was responsible for multiple acts of brutality,which included killing opponents of the regime in southern Germany. Giesler was also named in Hitler's Political Testament as Interior Minister,replacing Heinrich Himmler,in the short-lived Goebbels Cabinet. He committed suicide together with his wife in the closing days of the war in Europe.
Rudolf Buttmann was a German lawyer,Bavarian State Library director and Nazi politician.
Franz Ritter von Epp was a German general and politician who started his military career in the Bavarian Army. Successful wartime military service earned him a knighthood in 1916. After the end of World War I and the dissolution of the German Empire,Epp was a commanding officer in the Freikorps and the Reichswehr. His unit,the Freikorps Epp,was responsible for numerous massacres during the crushing of the Bavarian Soviet Republic. He was a member of Bavarian People's Party,before joining the Nazi Party in 1928,when he was elected as a member of the German parliament or Reichstag,a position he held until the fall of Nazi Germany. He was the Reichskommissar,later Reichsstatthalter,for Bavaria,and a Reichsleiter of the Nazi Party. During the Nazi era,Epp,who had participated in the Herero and Namaqua genocide as a young man,shared responsibility for the liquidation of virtually all Bavarian Jews and Romas as the governor of Bavaria.
The Free State of Oldenburg was a federated state that existed during the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany. It was established in 1918 following the abdication of the Grand Duke Frederick Augustus II of the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg after the German Revolution and was abolished by the Allies following the Second World War.
Wilhelm “Willi”Stöhr was a Nazi Party official and politician who served as Gauleiter of Gau Westmark in the closing months of the war.
Gau Swabia,formed on 1 October 1928,was an administrative division of Nazi Germany in Swabia,Bavaria,from 1933 to 1945. From 1928 to 1933,it was the regional subdivision of the Nazi Party in that area.
The Gau Munich–Upper Bavaria was an administrative division of Nazi Germany in Upper Bavaria from 1933 to 1945. From 1930 to 1933,it was the regional subdivision of the Nazi Party in that area.
Gau Bayreuth was an administrative division of Nazi Germany formed by the 19 January 1933 merger of Gaue in Lower Bavaria,Upper Palatinate and Upper Franconia,Bavaria. It was in existence from 1933 to 1945.
Karl Wahl was the Nazi Gauleiter of Gau Swabia from the Gau inception in 1928 until the collapse of Nazi Germany in 1945. After the war,Wahl spent 3½years in jail before being released in 1949. In 1954,he became the first former Gauleiter to publish his autobiography.
Fritz Wächtler was a Nazi Party official and politician who served as the Gauleiter of the eastern Bavarian administrative region of Gau Bayreuth. Trained as a primary school teacher,he also became head of the National Socialist Teachers League (NSLB) in 1935. During World War II he held the honorary rank of SS-Obergruppenführer and was the Reich Defense Commissioner of Gau Bayreuth. Prone to alcoholic outbursts and unpopular with the local residents,he eventually ran afoul of Martin Bormann in a political intrigue. Wächtler was executed on orders from Führer Headquarters near the end of the war on 19 April 1945.
Ludwig Ruckdeschel was the Acting Nazi Gauleiter of Bayreuth during the final month of the Gau's existence before the collapse of Nazi Germany in 1945. Before this,from 1933,he served as the Deputy Gauleiter,first to Hans Schemm,and then to Fritz Wächtler,whom he had executed on orders by Martin Bormann. From 1933 to 1945 he was also a member of the German Parliament,the Reichstag.
Ludwig Ernst August Schneidhuber was a German military officer and an SA-Obergruppenführer in the Sturmabteilung (SA),the Nazi Party's paramilitary organization. He held several high-level SA commands and was the Police President in Munich. He was murdered along with many other SA leaders in the Night of the Long Knives.
Wilhelm Schmid was a German military officer and an SA-Gruppenführer in the Sturmabteilung (SA),the Nazi Party's paramilitary organization. He held high level positions in the Supreme SA Leadership and as an SA field commander in Bavaria. From 1933 to 1934,Schmid also was a deputy of the Reichstag. He was arrested and executed during the Night of the Long Knives.
Fritz Ritter von Kraußer,born Friedrich Wilhelm Kraußer,was a German military officer who was a highly decorated veteran of the First World War. He later became an SA-Obergruppenführer in the Sturmabteilung (SA),the Nazi Party's paramilitary organization. Kraußer was also a deputy of the Reichstag. He was murdered along with many other SA leaders in the Night of the Long Knives.