ABSTRACT
Wagner, Adolf (1890–1944) National Socialist politician and Bavarian Minister of the Interior after the seizure of power in 1933, Adolf Wagner was born on 1 October 1890 in Algringen, Lorraine. An officer during World War I, then Director of a mining company in Bavaria, Wagner joined the NSDAP in 1923. Together with Max Amann (q.v.), Schwarz (q.v.) and Hermann Esser (q.v.), he belonged to the old Munich comrades of Hitler. In 1924 he became a member of the Bavarian diet and on 1 November 1929 he was appointed Gauleiter of the NSDAP for Munich-Upper Bavaria. In March 1933 Wagner was made Staatskommissar (State Commissioner) for Bavaria and in April of the same year he became Minister of the Interior and Deputy Prime Minister of Bavaria. As a result of his instructions, the numbers of those arrested rose considerably, including non-communist opponents of the Nazi regime. Wagner also served as a Reichstag member for the electoral district of Upper Bavaria-Swabia from 1933. A member of the clique who helped massacre Röhm's (q.v.) followers, he was appointed in 1935 to the personal staff of Hitler at the Brown House in Munich. On 28 November 1936 he was made Bavarian Minister of Education and Culture. Adolf Wagner played an active role in this capacity in securing financial pledges from wealthy industrialists and bankers to finance the building of the House of German Art in Munich. At the opening of the Great German Art Exhibition in July 1937 he was the master of ceremonies and he was always highly visible at the Day of German Art festivals held in the Bavarian capital. Though notorious for his drunkenness and womanizing, this coarse, despotic Bavarians with his wooden leg and thick duelling scar, liked to make speeches about art and culture. In September 1939 he was appointed Reich Commissioner for Military Districts VII and XIII. However, Wagner's health began to fail soon after the outbreak of war and he was eventually obliged to resign his various posts. He died on 12 April 1944 and was given an impressive funeral, which Hitler personally attended out of respect for one of his closest associates among the Old Guard fighters.
