Christian Mergenthaler

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Christian Mergenthaler as a member of the NSFP in the Reichstag in 1924

Christian Julius Mergenthaler (born November 8, 1884 in Waiblingen , † September 11, 1980 in Bad Dürrheim ) was a German politician ( NSDAP ), a member of the Württemberg state parliament , the Reichstag, and Württemberg Prime Minister and Minister of Culture .

Life

Christian Mergenthaler was born in Waiblingen as the son of a master baker, attended the Latin school and the secondary school in Waiblingen from 1894 to 1898 , from 1898 the secondary school in Cannstatt , which he graduated in 1902. After studying in Stuttgart , Tübingen and Göttingen , he passed the first service examination for the higher teaching post in 1907, did military service as a one-year volunteer from 1908 to 1909 and after the second service examination in 1911 became a senior teacher at the Latin and Realschule Leonberg . He took part in the entire First World War as an officer in an artillery unit , most of it at the front.

After an interlude in Stuttgart, he became a grammar school professor in Schwäbisch Hall in 1920 . A conservative, German national, anti-Semitic character, the radicalizing war experience and his alleged feeling for social issues led Mergenthaler politically to the extreme right. In Schwäbisch Hall in 1922 he co-founded the local NSDAP group, for which he was a very committed speaker. After the NSDAP was banned, he worked as a member of the National Socialist Freedom Movement from 1923 . For them he sat in the Württemberg state parliament from 1924; in the same year even briefly in the Reichstag. In 1927, after the collapse of the NSFB, he rejoined the NSDAP because he considered Adolf Hitler's sole rule in the party to be harmful. In the fight for the post of Gauleiter of the NSDAP, he had to surrender to his rival Wilhelm Murr , which resulted in massive tensions with him until 1945. Mergenthaler did not hold an office in the NSDAP. Only in the SA was he active in the rank of Obergruppenführer and always wore this uniform on public occasions. From 1928 to 1932 he was the only member of the NSDAP who represented the goals of his party in the Württemberg state parliament and showed himself - as during his time in Schwäbisch Hall - as an aggressive anti-Semite . In 1929 he was transferred from Schwäbisch Hall to Stuttgart-Cannstatt to the grammar school there.

After the "landslide victory" of the NSDAP in 1932, he became President of the State Parliament, and in 1933 Prime Minister of Württemberg and Minister of Culture . Since the former office lost considerably in importance due to the alignment of the states towards the Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter Murr, the function of minister of culture played the more important role. In his time as Minister for the abolition of the fall denominational schools , the establishment of a teachers college for primary school teacher training , the introduction of supplementary schools for gifted elementary school in the country and the expansion of schooling in the field of vocational training . These reforms were accompanied by the strict implementation of National Socialist ideas in the school administration. Mergenthaler, in line with the Nazi ideology, ruthlessly cracked down on unpopular teachers and headmasters whom he transferred or removed from their offices. Young teachers were put under massive pressure to join the NSDAP and take an active part in it. Mergenthaler led violent disputes with the churches, in particular the Evangelical Church in Württemberg and its regional bishop Theophil Wurm . Here he used the school administration systematically as a weapon in the " ideological struggle". Mergenthaler, who himself resigned from the church in 1941, intervened massively in the curricula of religious instruction, banned the treatment of certain parts of the Bible because they contradicted the "moral feeling of the Germanic race", cut state contributions to the churches, banned pastors who Did not take a pledge of loyalty to Hitler, the granting of religious instruction and finally in 1939 ordered the introduction of a National Socialist-themed "ideological instruction" in place of religious instruction. With his tough crackdown on the churches, he damaged his cause more than he used, and caused confusion and strife, so that he was partially slowed down by the Gauleiter and the Nazi Reich government. At the local level, his measures often led to bitter conflicts between the representatives of the church and those of the NSDAP and the school bureaucracy, which in some cases resulted in a noticeable alienation from the party and the authorities in the strongly church-bound population of Württemberg.

From 1945 to 1949 Mergenthaler was imprisoned in the Balingen internment camp , and in 1948 he was convicted as the “main culprit” in his court proceedings , against which he did not appeal. After his release from the camp, he lived in seclusion in the house he had left in Korntal-Münchingen and no longer appeared in public. From 1951 he received a maintenance allowance, from 1953 on by mercy the pension of a student councilor . In 1980 he died in Bad Dürrheim .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The official name for today's term Minister of Culture was Minister of Culture in Württemberg until around 1950 .

literature

  • Rudolf Kieß: Christian Mergenthaler. Württemberg Minister of Culture 1933–1945. In: Journal for Württemberg State History. 54, 1995, pp. 281-332.
  • Rudolf Kieß: Mergenthaler, Christian Julius, physics and mathematics teacher at secondary schools, MdL, MdR - NSDAP, Württemberg Prime Minister and Minister of Culture. In: Bernd Ottnad (Hrsg.): Baden-Württembergische Biographien. Vol. 2, Stuttgart 1999, pp. 317-320.
  • Rudolf Kieß: Christian Mergenthaler (1884–1980). In: R. Smele, J. Thierfelder (Ed.): We could not withdraw. Thirty portraits on the Church and National Socialism in Württemberg. Stuttgart 1998, pp. 159-174
  • Michael Stolle: The Swabian schoolmaster Christian Mergenthaler, Württemberg Prime Minister, Justice and Culture Minister. In: Michael Kißener , Joachim Scholtyseck (ed.): The leaders of the province. Nazi biographies from Baden and Württemberg. Konstanz 1997, pp. 445-477.
  • Martin Schumacher (Hrsg.): MdR The Reichstag members of the Weimar Republic in the time of National Socialism. Political persecution, emigration and expatriation, 1933–1945. A biographical documentation . 3rd, considerably expanded and revised edition. Droste, Düsseldorf 1994, ISBN 3-7700-5183-1 .
  • Erich Stockhorst: 5000 people. Who was what in the 3rd Reich . Arndt, Kiel 2000, ISBN 3-88741-116-1 (unchanged reprint of the first edition from 1967).
  • Frank Raberg : Biographical handbook of the Württemberg state parliament members 1815-1933 . On behalf of the Commission for Historical Regional Studies in Baden-Württemberg. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-17-016604-2 , p. 562 .
  • Bernhard Völker: Christian Mergenthaler. Cult minister and convict. In: Stuttgart Nazi perpetrators. From fellow travelers to mass murderers. Edited by Hermann G. Abmayr, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 3-89657-136-2 , pp. 296-301.

See also

Web links

Commons : Christian Mergenthaler  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Mergenthaler, Christian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mergenthaler, Christian Julius (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (NSDAP), MdR, Prime Minister of Württemberg
DATE OF BIRTH November 8, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Waiblingen
DATE OF DEATH September 11, 1980
Place of death Bad Durrheim