World War II
When war began in September 1939, Murr was appointed Reich Defense Commissar of Defense District V, which brought him enormous power. Important sectors of military and civil administration were now directly or at least de facto subject to his direct control. Virtually nothing could happen in Württemberg without the consent of Murr or his agents. The Holocaust carried out against Jews and the mentally ill went ahead smoothly in Württemberg thanks to Murr carrying out the Führer's and the Party's orders unconditionally.
After the increasing severity of air raids on Stuttgart in 1943, Murr had the first inkling of a nasty end. He secretly prepared evacuation measures for Stuttgart, but remained a faithful spokesman for Hitler and Goebbels in public. 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 for rape, Murr did not bring his loyalty to Hitler into question, going so far as to assure the Führer on 1 March that he would continue in his service.
Read more about this topic: Wilhelm Murr
Famous quotes containing the words world and/or war:
“... here, where the gaze is stopped everywhere, the whole earth is designed so that the face turns upward and the gaze implores. Oh! I hate this world where we are reduced to God.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“The funny part of it all is that relatively few people seem to go crazy, relatively few even a little crazy or even a little weird, relatively few, and those few because they have nothing to do that is to say they have nothing to do or they do not do anything that has anything to do with the war only with food and cold and little things like that.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)