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Concept
Fritz Schäffer
Summary
Fritz Schäffer (12 May 1888 – 29 March 1967) was a German politician of the Bavarian People's Party (BVP) and the Christian Social Union (CSU). He was the Bavarian Minister of Finance from 1931 to 1933, when the Nazis came to power in Berlin. In 1945 he became the first Minister President of Bavaria to hold office after the end of the Second World War. From 1949 to 1957, he was the West German federal Minister of Finance and, from 1957 to 1961, federal Minister of Justice.
Fritz Schäffer was born in 1888 as the son of Gottfried Schäffer and Amalia Mayr. He went to school in Ingolstadt, Munich and Neuburg an der Donau, afterwards studying law in Munich. He joined as a volunteer the Bavarian Infanterie-Leib-Regiment in 1915. After service in Serbia and Tyrol, he was wounded at Verdun in May 1916 and released from army service.
Schäffer started working for the Bavarian state government in 1917. He married Else Dyroff in September 1917.
He was imprisoned from 1933 until 1934, after which he worked as a lawyer. He was imprisoned again in Dachau concentration camp after the July 20 Plot until the end of World War II, from August to October 1944.
From 1918 to 1933, Schäffer was a member of the BVP. In 1929, he became chairman of this Bavarian regionalist party. From 1920 to 1933, he was a member of the Landtag of Bavaria. In his early political career, he made some anti-Semitic speeches, a fact that would haunt him in his later political life. Nevertheless, he opposed the Nazis' rise to power in Bavaria and took part in the formation of the Bayernwacht in 1931, an organisation aimed at protecting conservative politicians from the SA. He aimed at forming a coalition, which would include the Nazi Party and the Centre Party, arguing that such a step would neutralise the Nazi party to some extent. After this failed, he attempted to elevate the last Bavarian crown prince, Rupprecht, to the dictatorial position of Staatskommissar. The move ultimately failed due to the resistance of Bavarian prime minister, Heinrich Held, who feared that Schäffer would be made prime minister in his stead.
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