Emil Stürtz

Emil Stürtz (15 November 1892 – missing 21 April 1945) was a German Nazi Party official and politician who served as the Gauleiter in Brandenburg from 1936 to 1945.

Early life
Stürtz was born in Wieps, a village outside of Allenstein in East Prussia. He grew up in Königsberg, and after attending the Friedrich Bessel realschule, he joined the merchant marine as a seaman in 1912. When the First World War broke out, he joined the Imperial German Navy as a sailor. He served aboard the battlecruiser SMS Seydlitz and participated in the Battle of Jutland in 1916. He transferred to the U-boat arm and served aboard U-128 until Spring 1918 when he was declared unfit for duty due to severe illness. He became a war pensioner and then worked in various jobs as a locksmith repairman and a driver in Hattingen.

Nazi career
On 28 December 1925, Stürtz joined the National Socialist German Worker's Party (membership number 26,929) and became the press and propaganda leader for the Ortsgruppe (Local Group) in Hattingen. He moved up to Kreisleiter (County Leader) in the city of Dortmund in 1926. By 1929 he became Bezirksleiter (District Leader) of the Siegerland district. In November of that year, he was elected a member of the Landtag of the Province of Westphalia where he would serve until 1933 as the chairman of the Nazi faction.

Stürtz next became Business Manager of Gau Westphalia in June 1930 and by September was elected to the national Reichstag for electoral district 18 (Westphalia-South). On 1 October of the same year, the party appointed him Deputy Gauleiter of Gau Westphalia. When the Gau was divided in two on 1 January 1931, he remained Deputy Gauleiter in Gau Westphalia-South.

Upon the Machtergreifung (Nazi seizure of power) in 1933, Stürtz became chairman of the Provincial Committee for the province of Westphalia. In 1935, he was made a Prussian Provincial Councilor (Provinzialrat). On 7 August 1936, Stürtz succeeded Wilhelm Kube as Gauleiter of Gau Kurmark, and as Oberpräsident of the Prussian Provinces of Brandenburg and Posen-West Prussia, thus uniting under his control the highest party and governmental offices in these provinces. He was also made a member of the Prussian State Council. At the next Reichstag election in April 1938, Stürtz was elected as a deputy for electoral constituency 5 (Frankfurt am Oder). Following some territorial restructuring, Gau Kurmark became the Gau March of Brandenburg on 31 January 1939 and Stürtz remained its leader.

In September 1936, Stürtz joined the National Socialist Motor Corps (NSKK) with the rank of Brigadeführer. He would be promoted to Gruppenführer on 30 January 1937 and Obergruppenführer on 30 January 1939.

World War II and disappearance
At the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939, Stürtz was appointed the Reich Defense Commissioner (Reichsverteidigungskommissar) for Wehrkreis (Military District) III, which encompassed his Gau of Mark Brandenburg as well as Gau Berlin. Important sectors of the military and civilian war effort were now directly, or at least de facto, subject to his control. On 16 November 1942, the jurisdiction of the Reich Defense Commissioners was changed from the Wehrkreis to the Gau level, and he remained Commissioner only in his Gau. In September 1944, Stürtz became leader of the Volkssturm units within his Gau and was charged with constructing a defensive line against the Red Army advance on the eastern front. Over 40,000 German and foreign laborers were compelled to engage in this effort. On 21 April 1945, during the Battle of Berlin, Stürtz went missing.

After his widow searched for him unsuccessfully for ten years – even amongst the late repatriates (Spätheimkehrern) – Stürtz was officially declared dead on 24 August 1957 by the District Court of Düsseldorf, the city of his residence. The court fixed his date of death at 31 December 1945. It was assumed that he was captured by the Red Army and died in captivity.