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Wilhelm Murr (16 December 1888 – 14 May 1945) was a NSDAP Nazi Germany politician. From 1928 until his death he was Gauleiter of Gau Württemberg-Hohenzollern, and from early 1933 held the offices of State President and Reichsstatthalter (Reich Governor) of Württemberg. During World War II he also rose to the rank of SS- Obergruppenführer in addition to his Party posts. At war's end he committed suicide with poison while in France custody.
Murr became deeply involved in the Deutschnationaler Handlungsgehilfen-Verband ("German National Trade Assistants' Union"; DHV), a völkisch, rightwing, Anti-Semitism employees' union that he had joined even before the war. There he came into contact with the anti-Semite Theodor Fritsch's writings and was greatly influenced by them. Around this time he also joined the Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund, the largest, most active and most influential anti-Semitic organization in the Weimar Republic. He then joined the NSDAP in the summer of 1923, and after the Party was temporarily banned, he joined it again in August 1925. He eagerly recruited new members to the party at his workplace. A workers' newspaper criticized him in September 1927, saying that Murr's only job there was "to smuggle Hakenkreuzler ('Swastika devotees') into the works". It was also at this time that Murr got to know Richard Drauz, the later Nazi Kreisleiter of Heilbronn, whom Murr often patronized.
In October 1930, he gave up his job at the machine factory and began working full-time for the Party. The NSDAP's membership numbers and financial situation in Württemberg improved. Early in 1931 Murr introduced his own propaganda newspaper, the NS-Kurier, in which he published numerous editorials which, if not intellectually brilliant, faithfully gave the official party line right up until 1945.
In the general election of September 1930, Murr was elected a member of the Reichstag for the NSDAP in electoral constituency 31 (Württemberg). He left the parliament in May 1932 after he was elected to the Landtag of Württemberg in April 1932, and he served as the leader of the Nazi faction. After the Machtergreifung and under Nazi pressure, the Württemberg Landtag chose Murr as Württemberg's new State President, thereby leading him to succeed his other political foe, Eugen Bolz. Murr also took over the Interior and Economic Affairs Ministries at the same time.
On 6 May 1933, Murr was appointed to the newly created position of Reichsstatthalter (Reich Governor) in Württemberg; the office of Württemberg State President was abolished and the Landtag deprived of any function. His rival Mergenthaler, since early 1932 already Landtag president, became Murr's Prime Minister as well as Culture and Justice Minister. Murr's obvious intellectual shortcomings were touted as "populism" and he was described in Nazi propaganda as a "Man of the People". Joseph Goebbels, however, described Murr in a diary entry from 31 July 1933 as a "nouveau riche social climber."
At the November 1933 election, Murr was again returned to the Reichstag and retained that seat until the fall of the Nazi regime in May 1945. On 4 September 1935, Murr was named to Hans Frank's Academy for German Law. Murr's governance was notable for its petty ruthlessness. When Murr found out in 1938 that the Bishop of Rottenburg, Johannes Baptista Sproll, had not participated in the compulsory referendum on Austria's Anschluss, he initiated a campaign of newspaper articles and organized demonstrations which forced the bishop out of the province to Bavaria.
On 16 November 1942, the jurisdiction of the Reich Defense Commissioners was changed from the Wehrkreis to the Gau level, and Murr remained Commissioner for only his Gau. After the increasing severity of air raids on Stuttgart in 1943, Murr had the first inkling of a nasty end. He secretly prepared evacuation measures for Stuttgart, but remained a faithful spokesman for Hitler and Goebbels in public. Even when late in January 1944 Murr's only son Winfried, deployed with the Waffen-SS in Belgium, shot himself at the age of 21 to forestall Court martial proceedings for rape, Murr did not bring his loyalty to Hitler into question, going so far as to assure the Führer on 1 March that he would continue in his service.
Murr, his wife and two aides stayed at the Biberacher Hütte in the Alps until 12 May, then moved into an alpine cabin overlooking Schröcken. There, on 13 May, they were arrested by French troops, to whom Murr identified himself as "Walter Müller". The arrestees were first taken to Schoppernau, then to Egg, in Vorarlberg, where Murr and his wife committed suicide using poison capsules they had carried with them. Both were buried in the graveyard at Egg.
The United States occupiers had put Murr on their List of Potential War Criminals under Proposed US Policy Directives and were searching for him. The Americans and the French soon came to suspect that Murr might be dead, and with the Württemberg police found evidence that led them to Egg. On 16 April 1946, the grave of "Walter Müller" and his wife was opened. His former dentist uniquely identified Murr on the basis of his teeth.
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