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Karl Linder (5 April 1900 in Frankfurt am Main – 17 March 1979 in Groß-Bieberau) was a Nazi Party (NSDAP) official who served as Gauleiter of Gau Hesse-Nassau South and Gau Hesse-Nassau as well as in many governmental positions, including as Second Bürgermeister of Frankfurt am Main. A member of the Sturmabteilung (SA), Linder held the rank of SA- Brigadeführer.
In May 1928 Linder became a Stadtverordneter (City Councillor) of Frankfurt. Also in 1928, Linder became a member of the State Committee for Hesse-Nassau. In November 1929, he was elected to the Municipal Parliament of Wiesbaden and the Landtag (Provincial Parliament) of Hesse-Nassau, becoming the leader of the Nazi Party faction in that body. Linder also served as a Party Reichsredner (National Speaker) and was engaged in propaganda activities. In the parliamentary election of September 1930, Linder was elected as a deputy to the Reichstag from electoral constituency 19 (Hessen-Nassau). He retained this seat until the end of National Socialist rule in May 1945.
When Sprenger moved up to the position of Landesinspekteur on 17 August 1932, Linder succeeded him as Gauleiter of Hesse-Nassau South. However, in December 1932, the entire Landesinspekteur system was repealed, following the fall from power of Gregor Strasser whose Idea it was. On 1 January 1933, Sprenger returned as Gauleiter of the new Gau Hesse-Nassau (formed by the merger of Gau Hesse-Nassau South and Gau Hesse-Darmstadt) and Linder returned as his Deputy Gauleiter. From April 1933 to September 1939, Linder also headed the Gau Department of Municipal Politics, and was simultaneously the Chairman of the Hesse-Nassau office of the German Municipal Association.
In March 1933, Linder left the Deputy Gauleiter position after he was appointed Second Bürgermeister and head of human resources for the city of Frankfurt under Oberbürgermeister Friedrich Krebs. Linder set about dismissing numerous civil servants who were Jewish or political opponents of the Nazi Party, even before the anti-Semitic Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service was passed in April. In early 1933, he was also named to the Prussian State Council. From March 1933 to July 1937, Linder served as the editor of the magazine Das Rathaus (The Town Hall). In January 1935, he was appointed to the Prussian Provincial Council for Hesse-Nassau, serving through the end of the Nazi regime in 1945.
On 1 July 1937, when he relinquished his position as Second Bürgermeister of Frankfurt, Linder was again appointed Deputy Gauleiter of Gau Hesse-Nassau. He held this office until the end of the regime. On 20 April 1941, Linder was promoted to the Party rank of Befehlsleiter (Command Leader). In late March 1945, when the American army was invading Hesse-Nassau, Linder opposed the orders to destroy the bridges over the Main River. During the Battle of Frankfurt, just before the fall of the city on 29 March 1945, Linder fled to Thuringia.
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