Anton Haselmayer (12 April 1895 – 22 January 1962) was a

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...

official who served as ''

Gauleiter A ''Gauleiter'' () was a regional leader of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) who served as the head of a ''Administrative divisions of Nazi Germany, Gau'' or ''Reichsgau''. ''Gauleiter'' was the third-highest Ranks and insignia of the Nazi Party, rank in ...

'' of Gau Hesse-Nassau South, but was later dismissed and expelled from the Party.

Life

Haselmayer was born in

Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

. After graduating from gymnasium in 1914, he began studying law and then became a journalist. Haselmayer was an early adherent of the Nazi Party, joining it on 1 April 1925 (membership number 36) shortly after the lifting of the national ban that had been imposed on it in the wake of the failed

Beer Hall Putsch The Beer Hall Putsch, also known as the Munich Putsch,Dan Moorhouse, ed schoolshistory.org.uk, accessed 2008-05-31.Known in German as the or was a failed coup d'état by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler, Erich Ludendorff and other leaders i ...

. At the end of 1925, when the large Gau of Hesse-Nassau was divided in two, he was named the first ''

'' for Gau Hesse-Nassau South, which comprised the

People's State of Hesse The People's State of Hesse () was one of the constituent states of Weimar Republic, Germany from 1918 to 1945, as the successor to the Grand Duchy of Hesse () after the defeat of the German Empire in World War I, on the territory of the curren ...

and the southern section of the Prussian

Province of Hesse-Nassau The Province of Hesse-Nassau () was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1868 to 1918, then a province of the Free State of Prussia until 1944. Hesse-Nassau was created as a consequence of the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 by combining the ...

, with its capital at Frankfurt am Main. In these early years of the Party's development when the ban on

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

’s public speaking was still in effect, the ''Gauleiter'' served as the public face of the Party. Like all ''Gauleiters'', Haselmayer was directly responsible to Hitler and was his personal representative to the Gau. As such, he wielded considerable power over all Party matters within his jurisdiction. On 23 July 1926, Haselmayer was injured in an attempted assassination attempt in Frankfurt. On 28 July, Hitler wrote a letter to Haselmayer wishing him a speedy recovery and hoping that he would soon be well enough to exact revenge on the perpetrators.
Document 11, Letter from Hitler to Haselmayer, retrieved 29 January 2021. However on 22 September 1926, Haselmayer resigned as ''Gauleiter'', ostensibly “for health reasons,” though the real reasons for his resignation were never entirely made clear. Furthermore, on 1 October 1928 he was expelled from the Nazi Party. In 1930 his petition for reinstatement was denied. In March 1936 he obtained a law license and began working as an attorney in

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

. On 5 February 1937, his final petition for clemency and for readmission to the Party was denied. He was even accused of having staged the 1926 attack on himself as a way of improving his standing in the Party. The truth has never been definitively established. No additional details are known of Haselmayer's fate.

References

Sources

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Haselmayer, Anton 1895 births 1962 deaths Gauleiters Lawyers in the Nazi Party People from Frankfurt