# Christian Mergenthaler

Julius Christian Mergenthaler (8 November 1884 – 11 September 1980) was a German Nazi Party politician who served as the Ministerpräsident and culture minister of Württemberg for nearly the entire duration of Nazi Germany. He served as a deputy in the Württemberg Landtag for nine years, and in the Reichstag for one term. He was also a member of the Nazi paramilitary organization, the Sturmabteilung (SA), and rose to the rank of SA-Obergruppenführer. After the end of the Second World War, denazification proceedings judged him to be a major offender and he was interned for four years.

## Early life

Mergenthaler was born in the town of Waiblingen in Württemberg, the son of a baker. He attended the local Volksschule between 1894 and 1898 and then graduated from the Gymnasium in Bad Cannstatt in 1902. After studying mathematics and physics at the Technical University of Stuttgart, Tübingen University and the University of Göttingen, he passed the first service examination for secondary school teachers in 1907. He performed mandatory military service as a one-year volunteer between 1908 and 1909 with the 13th (Hohenzollern) Foot Artillery Regiment, headquartered in Ulm. He then passed the second state examination in 1911, and was employed as a senior teacher in the grammar and high schools in Leonberg. He returned to military service during the First World War as an artillery battery commander in the 24th Reserve Foot Artillery Regiment, much of that time at the front. After the end of the war, he left the army with the rank of Oberleutnant of reserves.
In 1920, Mergenthaler became a Gymnasium professor in the town of Schwäbisch Hall. A conservative German nationalist, with an antisemitic character, his radicalized war experience and sense of post-war social outrage led him to embrace extreme right-wing politics. He co-founded the local chapter of the Nazi Party in Schwäbisch Hall in 1922, and became heavily engaged in propaganda activities as a public speaker. After the Party was banned in 1923 following the failed Beer Hall Putsch, he joined the National Socialist Freedom Party (NSFP), a Nazi front organization. In May 1924, he was elected as a member of the Völkisch-Social Bloc (VSB) electoral alliance to a seat in the Württemberg Landtag (state parliament), which he would hold until 1928, and again from 1929 until the dissolution of that body by the Nazis in October 1933. He also won a seat in the Reichstag from electoral constituency 31 (Württemberg) but only served there until the next election in November 1924.
When the ban on the Nazis expired in 1925, the NSFP and the VSB were dissolved and many of its members rejoined the Nazi Party. Mergenthaler hesitated to do so until 1927 because he thought Adolf Hitler's dictatorial style was harmful to the cause. In a 1928 struggle for the key position of Party Gauleiter, Mergenthaler was outflanked by Wilhelm Murr, which resulted in a long-term rivalry between them with Mergenthaler holding the much less educated Murr in contempt. From 1929 to 1932, as the only Nazi Party deputy in the Landtag, he aggressively pursued the Party's goals.

## Career in Nazi Germany

At the 24 April state parliamentary election, the Nazis became the largest party in the Württemberg Landtag with 23 deputies, and Mergenthaler was elected president of that body. Following the national Nazi seizure of power in January 1933, Mergenthaler left his post as president of the parliament and was named Justice Minister and Culture Minister in the Württemberg cabinet formed by State President Murr on 15 March 1933. However, on 5 May, Hitler elevated Murr to the newly created position of Württemberg Reichsstatthalter (Reich Governor), and Mergenthaler succeeded him as head of the cabinet with the new title of Ministerpräsident, while also retaining the portfolio of Culture Minister.
Mergenthaler, since 1927, was also a long-serving member in the Party's paramilitary organization, the Sturmabteilung (SA), and he attained the rank of SA-Obergruppenführer in November 1938. He always wore his SA uniform at public events.
Clearly overshadowed by Murr, who held the highest Party and governmental posts, Mergenthaler nonetheless remained influential in his position as culture minister. His tenure in this post saw the creation of a new college for primary school teachers, the building of schools for gifted elementary students in rural areas and the expansion of vocational training. These seemingly progressive reforms were accompanied by a strict enforcement of Nazism in school management. He ruthlessly pursued teachers and principals who did not follow Nazi ideology, either transferring or removing them from their jobs. Young teachers were under particularly massive pressure to join the Nazi Party.
Mergenthaler also led a fierce "ideological struggle" with the Church, especially the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Württemberg and its bishop, Theophil Wurm. For this, he specifically used the schools as a weapon. Mergenthaler intervened in parochial schools and banned teaching of parts of the Bible that he thought contrary to the "moral sense of the Germanic race", cut State contributions to the churches, forbade pastors who had not pledged allegiance to Hitler and, in 1939, finally ordered the introduction of a Nazi-tinged "Intuitive World Curriculum" in place of all religious education. His harsh crackdown created confusion and discord, hurting his cause more than helping it. At the local level, his actions led to bitter conflicts between the Church, the Nazi Party and the school bureaucracy which alienated the devout population of Württemberg. His most extreme measures were even curtailed by Gauleiter Murr and the national Nazi government.

## Post-war life

During the Second World War, the Württemberg capital, Stuttgart, fell to the French Liberation Army on 21 April 1945. Mergenthaler fled but was located and arrested. From 1945 to 1949, he was interned at Balingen, a French internment facility established at a subcamp of the former Nazi Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp. In his 1948 denazification trial, Mergenthaler was judged to be a Hauptschuldiger (major offender) and he did not appeal this verdict. After release, he secluded himself in his house in Korntal and was no longer seen in public. In 1951, he received a living allowance and, after being pardoned in 1953, a full teacher's pension. He moved to Bad Dürrheim in 1977 where he died in September 1980.