Josef Bauer (SS officer)

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.^[3] 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.^[1]

After the Nazis seized power, he was appointed to the Munich City School Board on 23 April 1933. From 20 June, he held the title of Senior City School Director and held this position until the end of the National Socialist regime. In Munich, Bauer led the movement to abolish denominational schools in favor of public schools. In November 1933, he was elected to the Reichstag from electoral constituency 24, Upper Bavaria–Swabia. He would retain this seat until the end of the Nazi regime in May 1945.^[4] 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.^[5] 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.^[1]

Bauer had been a member of the SA since the early 1920s, and reached the rank of SA-Obersturmführer. He transferred to the Schutzstaffel (SS) in January 1935 (SS number 264,413), entering with the rank of SS-Standartenführer. In 1936, he was promoted to SS-Oberführer and on 1 January 1940 to SS-Brigadeführer.^[3] Bauer died in Munich in April 1958.

In February 2014, a rare two-volume set of Mein Kampf signed by Adolf Hitler, which had been Hitler’s holiday gift to Bauer, sold for $64,850 at Nate D. Sanders Auctions in Los Angeles.^[6] In the autograph, Hitler sent Bauer his best wishes for the Christmas season.

• Bavarian Teachers Association
• Information about Josef Bauer (SS officer) in the Reichstag database
• Literature by and about Josef Bauer in the German National Library catalogue
• "Josef Bauer" (in German). Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte.