Jakob Sprenger

Jakob Sprenger (24 July 1884 – 7 May 1945) was a Nazi politician who was the Gauleiter in Hesse-Nassau from 1927 to 1945.

For the 15th-century German priest associated with the Malleus Maleficarum, see Jacob Sprenger.
Jakob Sprenger
Gauleiter of Hesse-Nassau South
In office
1 April 1927 – 1 January 1933
Preceded byWalther Schultze
Succeeded byPosition abolished
Gauleiter of Gau Hesse-Nassau
In office
1 January 1933 – 7 May 1945
Preceded byPosition created
Succeeded byPosition abolished
Reichsstatthalter of the People's State of Hesse
In office
5 May 1933 – 7 May 1945
Preceded byPosition created
Succeeded byPosition abolished
Minister-President of the People's State of Hesse
In office
1 March 1935 – 25 March 1945
Preceded byPhilipp Wilhelm Jung
Succeeded byHeinrich Reiner
Oberpräsident of the Province of Nassau
In office
1 July 1944 – 24 April 1945
Preceded byPosition created
Succeeded byHans Bredow
Personal details
Born27 July 1884
Oberhausen, Kingdom of Bavaria, Germany
Died7 May 1945 (aged 60)
Kössen, German Reich
Political partyNational Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP)

Early life

Sprenger, the son of a farmer, was born in Oberhausen near Bad Bergzabern in the Palatinate. After graduating from high school, he served as a one-year military volunteer. From 1902 he was employed in the administrative service of the Imperial Postal Service. Sprenger volunteered for service in the First World War and became an NCO, at first training volunteers and reservists. He was then deployed to the front and saw action in France and in Russia where he was promoted to Leutnant. He was decorated for valor and awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class. Discharged in 1918, he resumed his career as a postal inspector in Frankfurt.[1]

Nazi career

In 1922, Sprenger became a member of the Nazi Party. He was anti-Semitic, and rose quickly through the ranks. When the Party was re-founded in February of 1925 after being banned in the wake of the Beer Hall Putsch, Sprenger re-joined in August (membership number 17,009) and became a Bezirksleiter (Regional Leader) in Hesse-Nassau South. He also became an SA leader in Frankfurt. He was appointed Gauleiter of Hesse-Nassau South on 1 April 1927. In 1929 he joined the Frankfurt City Council. He also became the Nazi faction leader in the municipal and provincial Landtags.[2]

In September 1930 he was elected a member of the Reichstag for electoral constituency 19, Hesse-Nassau. The same year, he founded a Nazi newspaper in Frankfurt called Frankfurter Volksblatt. From 1930 to 1933 he also sat on the administrative board of the German Postal Service. On 15 July 1932 came his appointment as Landesinspekteur-Southwest. In this position, he had oversight responsibility for his Gau and four others (Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, Hesse-Nassau North & Württemberg-Hohenzollern).[2] This was a short-lived initiative by Gregor Strasser to centralize control over the Gaue. However, it was unpopular with the Gauleiters and was repealed on Strasser's fall from power in December 1932. Sprenger then returned to his Gauleiter position in Hesse-Nassau South.[3]

When his Gau was merged with the neighboring Gau of Hesse-Darmstadt (comprising the federal People's State of Hesse) on 1 January 1933, he became the Gauleiter of the unified Gau Hesse-Nassau. On 5 May 1933, Sprenger was appointed Reichsstatthalter (Reich Governor) of the People's State of Hesse. In the process of the Gleichschaltung, in particular due to the Reichsstatthaltergesetz (Reich Governors Law) of 30 January 1935, he was also appointed Minister-President and took over leadership of the state government from Philipp Wilhelm Jung on 1 March 1935. Besides Martin Mutschmann of Saxony, he was the only Gauleiter to simultaneously hold the positions of Reichsstatthalter and Minister-President. He was promoted to SA-Obergruppenführer in 1938.[4]

War years

When the Second World War broke out on 1 September 1939, Sprenger was named Reich Defense Commissioner for Wehrkreis (Military District) XII, based in Wiesbaden. This encompassed the western half of his Gau along with Gau Koblenz-Trier, Gau Saarpfalz and part of Gau Baden. On 16 November 1942, the jurisdiction of the Reich Defense Commissioners was changed from the Wehrkreis to the Gau level, and he remained Commissioner for only his Gau of Hesse-Nassau. In 1943, the Oberpräsident (High President) of the Prussian Province of Hesse-Nassau, Philipp von Hessen, fell out of favor and was removed from office. Subsequently, the province was partitioned in two, effective 1 July 1944, and Sprenger was appointed Oberpräsident of the new Prussian Province of Nassau. He thus united under his control the highest party and governmental offices in the province, as he had already done in the State of Hesse.[4]

On the night of 25 to 26 March 1945, Sprenger fled from the advancing U.S. Army from Frankfurt to Kössen, Austria, where the Russians and US Army were subsequently in a pincer to cover the whole country. Trapped, he and his wife committed suicide on 7 May 1945.[5]

References
  1. Höffkes, 1986, pp. 318-319.
  2. Höffkes, 1986, p. 319.
  3. Orlow, 1969, pp. 273; 295.
  4. Höffkes, 1986, p. 320.
  5. Goeschel, 2009, p. 152.

Sources
  • Goeschel, Christian (2009). Suicide in Nazi Germany. OUP Oxford. ISBN 0191567566.
  • Höffkes, Karl (1986). Hitlers Politische Generale. Die Gauleiter des Dritten Reiches: ein biographisches Nachschlagewerk. Tübingen: Grabert-Verlag. ISBN 3-87847-163-7.
  • Orlow, Dietrich: The History of the Nazi Party: 1919-1933 (University of Pittsburgh Press), 1969, ISBN 0-8229-3183-4.

See also
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