Otto Karl Gessler (or Geßler) (6 February 1875 – 24 March 1955) was a liberal German politician during the Weimar Republic. From 1910 until 1914, he was mayor of Regensburg and from 1913 to 1919 mayor of Nuremberg. He served in numerous Weimar cabinets, most notably as Reichswehrminister (Minister of Defence) from 1920 to 1928.
Early life
Otto Karl Gessler was born on 6 February 1875 in Ludwigsburg in the Kingdom of Württemberg as the son of the non-commissioned officer Otto Gessler and his wife Karoline (née Späth). He finished school in 1894 with the Abitur at the Humanistisches Gymnasium in Dillingen an der Donau. He studied law in Erlangen, Tübingen and Leipzig and received his doctorate there in 1900. Initially, he worked for the judicial service of Leipzig. He then moved to Bavaria and served in various positions in the Bavarian justiciary (1903 clerk in the Bavarian Ministry of Justice, 1904 prosecutor in Straubing, 1905 Gewerberichter in Munich) before moving into public administration. In 1903, Gessler married Maria Helmschrott (died 1954).
Gessler kept that position for the next eight years, despite numerous changes of government. As Reichswehrminister he worked closely with Chef der Heeresleitung Hans von Seeckt in setting up the Reichswehr and turning it into a modern army. Gessler did not see his role as controlling the military, but rather in cooperating with the military command staff, which for its part viewed the Reichswehr's position as an independent and autonomous "state within the state".
Gessler played a key role in the 1923 German October. He and left-wing SPD premier of Saxony Erich Zeigner, an outspoken critic of the Reichswehr, shared a mutual antipathy. Gessler and conservative elements considered the Saxon and Thuringian governments suspect due to their reliance on the Communist Party for a parliamentary majority. Tensions grew throughout August and September as public clashes increased and Gessler cut contact with Zeigner. In early October, he called for the federal government to exercise its emergency powers, granted in response to the ongoing economic crisis and occupation of the Ruhr, to depose the state government. In the interim, he handed executive power to the Reichswehr commanders in the two states, who banned public gatherings and took control of the state police. At the same time, Gessler sought to avoid confrontation with the ultraconservative Bavarian government, who established a quasi-dictatorship in the latter months of the year and were known to be plotting a putsch against Berlin. The KPD were in fact planning a national uprising, and as preparation entered into coalition government in both Saxony and Thuringia alongside the SPD. However, after a joint conference in Chemnitz on 21 October indicated no desire for even a general strike among the left, plans were called off. Nonetheless, Chancellor Gustav Stresemann and the cabinet were swayed to Gessler's side and approved action; the state was occupied by the Reichswehr on 22 October.
Five days later, they demanded the formation of new governments in both Saxony and Thuringia without the Communists or else they would be deposed and Reich commissars installed to govern the states. While Thuringian premier August Frölich agreed to resign, Zeigner refused, stating that only the state parliament had the authority to force a change in government. The federal cabinet requested and received approval from President Friedrich Ebert on 29 October to depose him. This intervention, combined with the lack of action against the rebellious Bavarian government, led the SPD to threaten to quit cabinet. Gessler encouraged their departure, stating that their continued presence further incited the Bavarians to action; a "negotiated solution" could only be reached with them out of the picture. Historian Heinrich August Winkler described his stance as "nothing less than a partial capitulation" to the Bavarian regime. The SPD parliamentary group voted to withdraw from cabinet, and the rump minority government fell less than a month later, ending Stresemann's tenure as Chancellor.
From October to December 1925, Gessler also served as provisional Minister of the Interior and in May 1926 was Vice-Chancellor of Germany for a few days. In January 1927, the DDP voted against working with the coalition of the cabinet of Wilhelm Marx. To retain his position as Minister of Defence, Gessler left the party. was included the resistance’s 1944 plans, and, in the event that the coup succeeded, was slated to be political commissioner in Military District VII (Munich) in the shadow cabinet of General Ludwig Beck and Carl Friedrich Goerdeler. He was named in documents of Claus von Stauffenberg and was arrested two days after the assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler of 20 July 1944. He was detained and tortured at Ravensbrück concentration camp and then held at various Berlin prisons until his release in February 1945.