Karl Fiehler

Karl Fiehler (31 August 1895 – 8 December 1969) was a German Nazi Party (NSDAP) official and Mayor of Munich from 1933 until 1945. He was an early member of the Nazi Party having joined in 1920. In 1933, he became a Reichsleiter in the party and was a member of the Reichstag. In March of 1933, he was appointed Mayor of Munich and held that post until the end of World War II in Europe. During his time as mayor, Fiehler was zealously anti-Semitic and saw to it that the Jewish population of the city was persecuted. After the war in January 1949, Fiehler was sentenced to two years in a labour camp, but the sentence was suspended given the previous three-and-a-half years of detention he had already served. Early life Fiehler was born in Braunschweig, German Empire. As a child, he attended a secondary modern school in Munich and afterwards he began a merchant apprenticeship, which he continued in Schleswig-Holstein in 1914. Fiehler served in World War I and was decorated with the Iron Cross, second class. In 1919 he entered the local government of the City of Munich as an administration trainee and in 1922 successfully passed the examination for the administrative and clerical grade. Nazi Party career By 1920 he had already joined the Nazi Party with the membership number 37. In 1923, Karl Fiehler became a member of the Stoßtrupp-Hitler (Shock Troop-Hitler), that had been established to provide personal protect for Hitler. On 8 and 9 November 1923 he participated actively in the failed Beer Hall Putsch. For his participation Fiehler was sentenced to 15 months' confinement in Landsberg fortress. From 1924 until 1933 he was an honorary alderman and in 1929 he outlined the principles of Nazi local politics in his 80-page booklet "National Socialist Municipal Policy", printed by the Munich publishing house "Franz-Eher-Verlag", which was the central party publisher of the NSDAP. During the 1930s he published on several occasions concerning local politics in Germany from a National Socialist point of view.