Karl Holz (Gauleiter)

Karl Holz (born 27 December 1895 in Nuremberg; died 20 April 1945 in Nuremberg) was the NSDAP Gauleiter of Gau Franconia and an SA Gruppenführer.

He was the fifth child born to a heliographer also named Karl Holz and finished "Volksschule" and an apprenticeship as a salesman, working thereafter as a clerk.

Between 1915 and 1918 he served at the front in the First World War for the German Empire, suffering several wounds in the process. He took a job afterwards as an official in Nuremberg. In 1920 he joined the German Socialist Party ("Deutschsozialistische Partei"). Once its chairman Julius Streicher had gone over to the Nazis in 1922, the party was melded into the NSDAP. Holz's membership number was 77 and he officially joined the Nazis on 11 November 1922. Holz joined the Sturmabteilung and stayed until 1933 with the rank of Sturmführer.

Quite early on, Holz established a close relationship with Streicher.

In 1924, Holz was elected to Nuremberg City Council, which he quit only the next year. Between 1927 and 1933, he held the post of editor-in-chief of "Der Stürmer", Streicher's anti-Semitic weekly newspaper. In 1933 he was given the position of ministerial adviser.

As of 1 January 1934, Karl Holz operated as Streicher's representative in his capacity as Gauleiter of Franconia. In July of the same year, he was appointed NSDAP "Kreis" leader of Nuremberg-town, and in November came his promotion to SA Brigadeführer.

In 1940, in connection with the Streicher irregularities involving the Aryanization of Jewish assets, Holz was temporarily stripped of all his offices. Appointed Reich Defence Commissar of Franconia as of November 1942, he was furthermore assigned the Gau leadership on 8 March 1943. Although Streicher was still Gauleiter, Adolf Hitler appointed Holz as such in November 1944, shortly before the war's end.

After United States troops of the 3d Infantry Division had all but taken Nuremberg on 18 April 1945, Holz barricaded himself in the "Palmenhofbunker" at the Nuremberg Police Presidium along with a small group, among whom was the city's mayor, Willy Liebel. It has been assumed that Holz shot Liebel in the "Palmenhofbunker" owing to the latter's efforts to surrender the city to put a stop to the fighting, and also because there had been a rivalry between the two men for years over who should have the power within the local Nuremberg NSDAP. Holz met his own end in the same place on 20 April – coincidentally Hitler's birthday – but whether it was suicide or an injury sustained in the battle is unknown.

Every bit as unsqueamish as his predecessor as Gauleiter, Julius Streicher, Holz boasted many penalties for political crimes (by his own count 17, and among those 5 prison sentences). With his aggressive way of doing things, even dissenters within the party had to suffer with the knowledge that Holz, as a party man and as Streicher's pupil, had partly taken over from his master. The Gauleiter's office in Upper Franconia, which was already much striven-after even before the Nazis seized power, was successfully disputed by the Bayreuth "Kreisleiter" Hans Schemm, despite Streicher's support for Holz.

Awards

Karl Holz received the following awards:
*"Verwundetenabzeichen" (Wound Badge) in 1918;
*"Verwundetenabzeichen" in 1939, in gold 1940;
*Iron Cross, second class in 1939;
*"Ehrenkreuz für Frontkämpfer" (Nazi medal for WWI veterans);
*Golden Party Badge;
*"Dienstauszeichnung der NSDAP in Gold" (Service Award of the NSDAP in Gold).
*The Golden Cross of the German Order on 19 April 1945 (the day before his death), bestowed by Hitler for his role in Nuremberg's defence against the US Army;