Josef Bauer

Josef Bauer (25 January 1881 – 30 April 1958) was a German schoolteacher who became a Nazi Party official and politician. He held several leadership positions in the Nazi educational establishment and served as a deputy in the Reichstag. He was also an SS-Brigadeführer.

Early life Bauer, was born the son of a blacksmith and a teacher in Munich. He attended Volksschule, teacher preparatory school and university. He worked as a teacher in Mitterfels, Passau, and Munich. In 1911, he undertook a study tour of England. From 1915 to 1918, he served in the First World War in the Royal Bavarian Army with the Life Infantry Regiment and the 2nd Infantry Regiment on the western front. He attained the rank of Leutnant and was awarded the Iron Cross, 2nd class.

Nazi Party career Bauer first joined the Nazi Party in November 1922 and participated in the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich as a storm troop leader in the Sturmabteilung (SA). After the ban on the Nazi Party was lifted, he rejoined the Nazi Party on 1 April 1925 (membership number 34). As an early Party member, he later would be awarded the Golden Party Badge. He became an Ortsgruppenleiter (local group leader) in Munich and, in 1930, a Reich speaker and head of the Gau speaker school. From 1932 to 1933, Bauer was a member of the Landtag of Bavaria, where he was chairman of the Nazi Party parliamentary group. From 1933 until its dissolution and incorporation into the National Socialist Teachers League (NSLB) on 1 January 1938, Bauer was chairman of the Bavarian Teachers Association. In 1937, he became a political director in the Main Office for Local Politics in the Party's Reichsleitung (national leadership), where he directed the department for municipal school issues. From 1941, he was the director of the Munich district office of the office of educators in the NSLB. In the autograph, Hitler sent Bauer his best wishes for the Christmas season.