Karl Scharnagl

Karl Scharnagl (born 17 January 1881 in Munich; died 6 April 1963 in Munich) was a German politician. He was Lord Mayor of Munich from 1925 to 1933 and again from 1945 to 1948, and in 1945 he co-founded the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU).

Scharnagl first learned bakery and confectionery trades in the family business, but showed interest in a political career at an early age. His brother Anton Scharnagl was a clergyman. In 1911, at just 30 years of age, he was a deputy of the Center Party in the second chamber of the Bavarian Parliament. In 1918, after breaking off from the Centre Party, he was a member of the Bavarian People's Party, where he was a member of Parliament through two election periods 1920-1924 and 1928-1932. In 1917, he was also in the select committee of the Bavarian Association of the German Fatherland Party.

In 1919, Scharnagl was elected to the city council of Munich, 1925 vice mayor and in 1926 he was elected mayor of the city. As mayor, his attention was given to the expansion of the transport network as well as to housing. After the seizure of power by the Nazi Party in 1933, and after several clashes he resigned in office and returned to his learned profession as a baker.

Although he was not involved in the failed assassination attempt of 20 July 1944, Scharnagl was arrested and detained in the Dachau concentration camp. After the liberation of the camp and the subsequent surrender of the German Wehrmacht, Scharnagl was placed by the US armed forces in May 1945 in the position as mayor of Munich. Together with Karl Meitinger he played an important role in the historicist reconstruction of the city center ("Scharnagl Plan") and was the initiator of the "Kulturbaufonds" Munich. To commemorate his plans for a traffic circle, a section of Altstadtring was named after him.

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