Wahl, Karl.

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Wahl, Karl, born 24-09-1892 in Aalen Wurttemburg as the thirteenth child of a boilerman. Upon finishing his schooling, he wished to join the Kaiserliche Marine but his father would not allow him. Instead, Karl entered the Bavarian Army in Aschaffenburg in 1910, signing on as a volunteer for two years. He became a paramedic in the army and was promoted to sergeant. He served in the First World War as a paramedic but was wounded in 1915 . After the war, he became a civil servant at the Augsburg city council, where he remained until 1933. His first position was at the city slaughterhouse. Wahl joined the SA and the NSDAP  (Nr. 9.803), in 1922 and became the leader of the SA in Swabia in 1923. In 1928, he became a member of the Bavarian Landtag, the state parliament, a seat he held until 1933, when he was elected to the German Reichstag. Wahl established the first Nazi-owned newspaper in Augsburg in 1931, the Neue National-Zeitung, which engaged in hate propaganda against Jews, the workers movement and the political opposition. Wahl became Gauleiter of Swabia on 01-10-1928 and held this position until the end of the World War II in May 1945, when the Gaue were abolished. Vehicle insignia for a Gauleiter. With the first electoral successes of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) after its re-establishment in 1925 and its expansion in the German Reich, party leaders personally appointed by Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) and dependent on him gained increasing importance. In the districts established in Bavaria and then in the rest of the Reich since 1925/26, these Gauleiter were supposed to coordinate the propaganda, mobilization and election campaigns of the young but rapidly expanding party. The Gauleiter was directly appointed by Hitler and only answerable to him. In practice, Hitler interfered little in the affairs of the local leaders and their power was almost absolute. Wahl joined the SA, SS  (Nr. 228.017) and was promoted to SS-Gruppenführer on 09-09-1934. In May 1941, he held a rather telling speech at the Williy Messerschmitt factory, voicing his belief in Hitler and his mission from God. With the worsening war situation, Wahl and the Gau Schwaben came under the military command of Gauleiter Paul Giesler he committed suicide age 49, on 08-05-1945, in 1944, who was in charge of Swabia and three of the formerly Austrian Gaue. He met Hitler for a last time on 25-02-1945 in Berlin. Wahl was well aware then that the war was lost. The latter issued on this occasion in front of a large number of Gauleiter the statement that “the German people did not have the inner strength they were perceived to have” and therefore were losing the war. Wahl attributed this harsh statement to the stress the Führer, Adolf Hitler (did you know) was in and perceived him to be mortally ill. Nevertheless, he could not understand why Hitler (see Hitler Paula)
    continued the war. In the last days of the war, Wahl made no effort to prevent the handover of Augsburg to the allies, knowing full well that the city could not be defended; shortly after he was arrested. Wahl, Gauleiter of Swabia for almost 17 years, only served a light sentence after the war, being sentenced to 3.5 years and loss of all personal funds on 17-12-1948. He was also a witness at the Nuremberg trials in 1946. After his time in prison, he changed his profession and became a textile merchant. He later worked in the library of the Messerschmitt factory from 1958 to 1968, thanks to his friendship with Willy Messerschmitt, established in the Nazi era.

Death and burial ground of Wahl, Karl.

  SS Obergruppenführer Karl Wahl died old age 88, on 18-02-1981 and his grave is on the Stadtfriedhof in Augsburg-Göggingen, where he is buried with his wife Marie, who died age 83, in 1979, carries the message: “Do not tire of doing good deeds”.

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