Karl Holz (politician)

Karl Holz, recording of unknown date from the main archive of the NSDAP in the holdings of the Federal Archives

Karl Holz (born December 27, 1895 in Nuremberg ; † April 20, 1945 there ) was a German National Socialist politician, NSDAP Gauleiter of Franconia and SA group leader .

Life

Holz, son of a collotype printer , graduated from elementary school in 1910 . After an apprenticeship as a businessman , he worked as an employee from 1913 . Between 1915 and 1918 he performed military service in several infantry regiments of the Prussian army and was wounded twice. After the war he was the municipal office secretary in Nuremberg.

In 1920 he joined the German Socialist Party . This was merged with its chairman Julius Streicher in 1922 after his transfer to the NSDAP . Holz received membership number 77 in the NSDAP and rejoined the party after it was banned as part of its re-establishment in 1925. During the time of the party ban, he was active in the Völkischer Bund Reichsadler in Nuremberg. Holz joined the SA in 1922 and led an SA company in Nuremberg until November 1923. With the SA he remained in the rank of storm leader until 1933. Holz and Streicher were considered friends.

In 1924 Holz was elected to the Nuremberg City Council, to which he belonged until 1932 and from 1929 to 1930 was the faction leader of his party. In February 1925 he resigned from the civil service and then ran the “Großdeutsche Buchhandlung” in Nuremberg until 1933. During this period he was sentenced several times to fines and short prison terms by Bavarian courts for defamation of political opponents. From 1925 to 1926 he headed the office of the NSDAP Gauleitung Nordbayern and in 1926 he was the local branch leader while Streicher was in custody. From 1927 to 1943 he gave propaganda lectures for local NSDAP groups in Central Franconia. In 1929 he was the local district manager and from that year headed the Gau propaganda division of the Central Franconian NSDAP Gau leadership. From 1927 and 1933 he acted as the responsible editor and then until 1938 as the main editor of the Stürmer , Streicher's anti-Semitic - pornographic weekly newspaper .

From 1928 to 1933 wood belonged to the Central Franconian district council. In April 1932, Holz was elected to the Bavarian state parliament. In 1933 he received the function of a ministerial councilor ; From November 1933 he was a member of the Reichstag, which was meaningless in the National Socialist German Reich . From 1935 he was councilor in Nuremberg.

In the political controversy as little squeamish as his predecessor Streicher, Gauleiter Holz boasted of his numerous political punishments (according to his own statements 20, including five prison sentences). The internal party opponents also suffered from his aggressive approach, which Holz partly took over from Streicher's partisan and pupil. The Gauleiter of the Bavarian East Marks , which he was striving for before the takeover of power, was successfully challenged by the Bayreuth district leader Hans Schemm, despite Streicher's support .

From 1933 to July 1934 he was NSDAP district leader in Nuremberg city. From January 1, 1934, Karl Holz operated as Streicher's deputy in his capacity as Gauleiter of Franconia. In addition, from the beginning of April 1934, he was deputy head of the “ Central Committee for Defense against Jewish atrocities and boycotts ”. In November 1937 he was promoted to SA brigade leader.

After the beginning of the Second World War , Holz was drafted into the Wehrmacht in November 1939 and took part in military operations with the 25th Panzer Regiment until April 1941, at last with the rank of non-commissioned officer. In 1940, in connection with the investigation into Streicher's irregularities in the “ Aryanization ” of Jewish property , Holz was temporarily relieved of all offices; Streicher had not given "Aryanized" assets to the empire , but used them for his own purposes and was supported by wood. At the time, it was not the theft itself that was problematic, only the exploitation of the booty.

Appointed Reich Defense Commissioner of Franconia since November 1942 , Holz had been entrusted with the management of the Gau on April 4, 1942. In September 1942 he was promoted to NSDAP command leader and in November 1942 he was promoted to SA group leader. In November 1944, shortly before the end of the war, Hitler appointed Holz Gauleiter of Franconia. In addition, he held the functions of a representative for the Gau Franconia of the general plenipotentiary for the "work assignment" and the "total war effort". At the end of the war, Holz also led the Volkssturm in Franconia.

After the almost complete capture of Nuremberg by US troops of the 3rd US Infantry Division under John W. O'Daniel on April 18, 1945, Holz holed up with a small group in the Palmenhof bunker at the Nuremberg police headquarters. Among them was the Lord Mayor of Nuremberg, Willy Liebel . Holz died in the police headquarters during the Battle of Nuremberg .

literature

• Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . 2nd Edition. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .

Web links

• Karl Holz in the database of members of the Reichstag
• Karl Holz in the parliamentary database at the House of Bavarian History
• Joachim Lilla : Holz, Karl , in: ders .: Minister of State, senior administrative officials and (NS) officials in Bavaria 1918 to 1945.

Remarks

1. ↑ Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv IV , Kriegstrammrolle No. 6276. Came to I. Ersatz-Batl in December 1918 of the 14th Bavarian. IR in Nuremberg and was released there in January 1919 with the last rank of private.
2. ^ Wolfgang Mück: Nazi stronghold in Middle Franconia: The völkisch awakening in Neustadt an der Aisch 1922–1933. Verlag Philipp Schmidt, 2016 (= Streiflichter from home history. Special volume 4); ISBN 978-3-87707-990-4 , pp. 69, 72 f., 85, 93, 115, 130, 174 and 191-196.