Two Lives, Two Reponses to the Rise of Nazism

How Mayor Karl Scharnagl underestimated the Nazis – and Ernst Wille fought for democracy

One factor that contributed to the end of the Weimar Republic was the belief among established politicians that the National Socialists would lose their appeal once in office. Karl Scharnagl, the Mayor of Munich, was one such established politician. In 1933, he was still refusing to recognize the disaster looming ahead. Ernst Wille’s response was very different – he fought for democracy from the start. The stories of these two men illustrate what can happen when the enemies of democracy are underestimated.

Adolf Hitler had been Reich Chancellor for a few weeks and the fundamental rights enshrined in the Weimar Constitution had effectively been suspended. But over in Munich, the city’s conservative mayor, Karl Scharnagl, still saw no reason for alarm. In a letter to Thomas Mann dated March 9, 1933, he wrote the following: “[…] within one or two years, this whole revolutionary wave of National Socialism [will] have been brought back under control.” The Nazis occupied Munich City Hall that very same day.

Karl Scharnagl was a master baker and confectioner. In 1905, aged 24, he took over his parents’ bakery in Munich. His involvement in Catholic journeymen’s associations led him into politics. He started out by representing the Center Party in the Bavarian State Parliament; later, when the monarchy came to an end, he joined the newly-founded Bavarian People’s Party. Although he was a member of the Bavarian parliament, his focus was on local politics. Karl was critical of the Weimar Republic; he would have much preferred Bavaria to be independent and separate from what he described as “Bolshevik-led Northern Germany.”

He was not the only one to hold this view in Munich’s political circles in the 1920s. In the 1924 city council elections, both the Conservatives and the National Socialists gained ground. Karl Scharnagl was then elected to the office of First Mayor by the city council. He relied on a political alliance with the six National Socialist city councilors whose votes he needed to secure a majority.

He underestimated how radical the Nazi Party was, and his own party voted unanimously in favor of Hitler’s Enabling Act in the Reichstag in 1933. In the letter he wrote to Thomas Mann in March 1933, he expressed the belief that the National Socialists could be brought around to a more moderate position: “This would require the many well-intentioned factions within National Socialism […] to gain and maintain the upper hand.”

Others in Weimar Germany were warning of the threat to democracy from the extremist fringes. The largest pro-democracy alliance was the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold (literally “’Black-Red-Gold Banner of the Reich”), a nonpartisan organization founded in Magdeburg in 1924. It united representatives of the SPD (Social Democratic Party), the DDP (German Democratic Party), and the Center Party, who joined forces to protect the Republic and its constitution.

The “Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold” was founded as a nonpartisan veterans’ and paramilitary organization. It combined military traditions with the goal of protecting the democratic and republican state. As the right-wing nationalist Stahlhelm and the Sturmabteilung (SA) organizations gained strength, the paramilitary wing of the Reichsbanner became more important. As well as holding flag ceremonies and parades, the Reichsbanner concentrated its efforts primarily on community events, such as discussion evenings, public festivals, and sporting events to foster a sense of democratic community. Because of the different political currents within the organization, the focus was on finding common ground: a nonpartisan commitment to a democratic constitution.

Ernst Wille was a founding member and chair of the Reichsbanner’s Magdeburg-Anhalt regional branch. The SPD politician and his colleagues organized security for democratic events. They used campaign posters, demonstrations, and discussion evenings to draw attention to the dangers facing the republic. With the radicalization of the right, the paramilitary structure of the Reichsbanner came to serve as a counterweight to the SA. But over time, conservative politicians gradually withdrew from this coalition of democratic parties. The Reichsbanner’s success on the streets did not carry over into high-level politics.

When the Nazis took power, they lost no time in demonstrating the brutal treatment that awaited their political opponents. Members of the Reichsbanner, including Ernst Wille, found themselves specifically targeted by the regime. In 1939, the Gestapo placed Wille in “protective custody,” imprisoning him in the Magdeburg remand prison before deporting him to Buchenwald concentration camp. His family worked hard to secure his release, and he was freed in April 1943.

But the Gestapo arrested him again in December of the same year, when a neighbor denounced him, reigniting a rumor that had first emerged eleven years earlier. Ernst and other members of the Reichsbanner were said to have plotted to assassinate Adolf Hitler during his visit to Magdeburg in 1932. The plan was never carried out. The Gestapo subjected Ernst to terrible abuse and deported him to Neuengamme concentration camp in the spring of 1944. He died there in late May 1944 – officially of pneumonia.

In official documents like Ernst Wille’s death certificate, the Nazis often concealed the true cause of their victims’ deaths. To make sure the families of the deceased and the general public did not find out about the systematic killings they were carrying out, the Nazis officially recorded natural causes of death, such as pneumonia or heart failure, to disguise the truth. This practice was particularly common in the case of victims of the Nazis’ “euthanasia” program, but was also used when prisoners died in concentration camps.

Karl Scharnagl’s name appears in documents held by the Arolsen Archives. At first, he seemed to get off relatively lightly. Eleven days after the Nazis occupied Munich City Hall in March 1933, they forced Karl to resign as mayor and assaulted Social Democratic and Communist city council members.

The former mayor withdrew from public life and went back to working as a baker. In the 1940s, he was in contact with conservative groups involved in the resistance, including the conspirators behind the plot to assassinate Hitler on July 20, 1944. Although Karl Scharnagl was not actively involved in the plot, the Gestapo imprisoned him in Dachau concentration camp in August 1944. He was released in October.

Karl Scharnagl spent the final days of the war hiding in a monastery. The U.S. military found him there and asked him to return to Munich City Hall. On May 4, 1945 – before the war officially ended on May 8 – the U.S. military government appointed Karl Scharnagl acting mayor. As well as contributing to the reconstruction of Bavaria, he was involved in founding the political party now known as the CSU. He was officially confirmed in office in May 1946.

Karl Scharnagl’s story also shows how antisemitic and racist attitudes remained deeply entrenched in postwar society. In an interview he gave in 1949, he said that antisemitism would not subside “until this group of people [meaning Jews, ed.] has completely disappeared through emigration.” The final years of his political career were overshadowed by further scandals. Criticism grew until he retired from politics in 1949, officially for health reasons. He died in Munich in 1963 at the age of 82.