Otto Wetzel

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Otto Wetzel

Otto Wetzel (born April 5, 1905 in Karlsruhe , † March 29, 1982 in Bonn ) was a German politician (NSDAP).

Live and act

After attending elementary school and high school in Heidelberg , Wetzel first studied construction, later mechanical engineering and economics at the technical universities in Karlsruhe, Stuttgart , Darmstadt and Munich . After graduating, he worked as an engineer. According to the Reichstag handbook, he practiced this profession until he was a member of parliament.

In 1922 Wetzel became a member of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP). In the party he was primarily active on the journalistic level: for example, he founded the National Socialist daily newspapers Die Volksgemeinschaft and Das Hakenkreuz , which he also edited. In the later 1920s, Wetzel took over various local group and district leader posts: From 1927 to 1928 he was Gauleiter of the Hitler Youth in Stuttgart. From 1928 to 1929 he was head of the Reich organization of the NS student union in Munich. From 1929 to 1931 he was NS district leader in Heidelberg, then he held the same office in Mannheim. Since November 1930 Wetzel was a member of the Heidelberg City Council, in which he also worked as a parliamentary group leader until 1932. The appointment of Wetzel as Gauleiter of Württemberg, which was planned in the early 1930s, ultimately did not materialize.

In the Reichstag election of July 1932 , he was elected as a candidate for the NSDAP for constituency 32 (Baden) in the parliament of the Weimar Republic . After his mandate had been confirmed in the elections of March 1933 and November 1933, Wetzel resigned from parliament for the time being in November 1933. In August 1935, however, he was able to return to the now National Socialist Reichstag , in which he now represented constituency 6 (Pomerania) in the replacement process for the resigned MP Willy Fruggel . On the occasion of the elections in March 1936 and August 1938, Wetzel was re-elected to the Reichstag for constituency 32 (Baden), to which he now belonged without interruption until the collapse of Nazi rule in May 1945. One of the important parliamentary events in which Wetzel took part during his time as a member of parliament was the vote on the Enabling Act in March 1933, which was also passed with Wetzel's vote.

After the National Socialist " seizure of power " in March 1933, Wetzel was appointed - alongside Carl Renninger - one of the two commissioners for the city of Mannheim and commissioner of the Baden government in municipal affairs. He was a speaker at the book burning on May 19, 1933 in Mannheim. In May he was released from office by Robert Wagner and from June 1933 he was one of the mayors of Heidelberg for a year . In 1934 Wetzel took over the management of the press and propaganda department of the Reichsheimstättenamt of the German Labor Front and the office of the settlement commissioner. In autumn 1937, he was finally appointed deputy head of office.

After 1945 Wetzel was active in the neo-Nazi NPD . He also founded the Sigrid Hunke Society .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ernst Klee : The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 661.
  2. ↑ Fred H. Richards: The NPD. Alternative or return? (= History and state 121, ZDB -ID 569875-3 ). Olzog, Munich et al. 1967, p. 65.

literature

Web links

  • Otto Wetzel in the database of members of the Reichstag
personal data
SURNAME Wetzel, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (NSDAP, NPD), MdR
DATE OF BIRTH April 5, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Karlsruhe
DATE OF DEATH March 29, 1982
Place of death Bonn