Wilhelm Murr - Rise To Power

Rise To Power

After fierce intra-party fighting, the local Esslingen leader Murr, who attracted attention for his ruthless and unscrupulous methods, was able to oust the incumbent NSDAP Gauleiter Eugen Munder from power. In February 1928, Adolf Hitler appointed Murr to NSDAP Gauleiter in Württemberg-Hohenzollern. Another of his rivals he managed to bypass for promotion was Christian Mergenthaler. Murr was able to consolidate his position in Württemberg through strict subordination to Hitler and the Party.

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 in Württemberg improved. Early in 1931 Murr introduced his own propaganda newspaper, the NS-Kurier, in which he published numerous editorials which, if not intellectually brilliant, faithfully gave the official party line right up until 1945.

In the general elections of autumn 1930, Murr was elected a member of the Reichstag for the NSDAP in electoral district 31 (Württemberg). After the Nazis seized power and under Nazi pressure, the Württemberg Landtag chose Murr as Württemberg's new State President, thereby leading him to succeed his another political foe, Eugen Bolz. Murr also took over the Interior and Economic Affairs Ministries at the same time.

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 deprived of any function. His rival Mergenthaler, since early 1932 already Landtag president, became Murr's Prime Minister well as Culture and Justice Minister. Murr's obvious intellectual shortcomings were touted as "populist" and he was described in Nazi propaganda as a "Man of the People". Joseph Goebbels, however, described Murr in a diary entry from 31 July 1933 as a "nouveau riche social climber".

Murr's governance was notable for its petty ruthlessness. When Murr found out in 1938 that the Bishop of Rottenburg, Johannes Baptista Sproll, had not participated in the compulsory referendum on Austria's union with Germany, he initiated a campaign of newspaper articles and organized demonstrations which forced the bishop out of the province to Bavaria.