he re-joined it on 20 July 1925. On 1 October 1928 he was appointed Gauleiter of the Upper Palatinate. On 1 November 1929 he was switched to the prestigious post of Gauleiter of Greater Munich, the seat of the Nazi movement. Finally, on 16 November 1930 his Gau absorbed the neighboring Gau of Upper Bavaria and he became Gauleiter of Gau Munich-Upper Bavaria, which was given the special designation Traditionsgau. As Gauleiter of Munich, Wagner served as the master of ceremonies for the annual commemorations of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch every 9 November. Also, Wagner was given the honorary title of “Speaker of the Party,” a special designation that entitled him to read the Führer's proclamations at public events such as the annual Nazi Party rally held in Nuremberg. Wagner's pitch, intonation and speaking style were considered very similar to Adolf Hitler's. Shortly after the Nazi seizure of power in Germany, Wagner was sent by Hitler to take charge of the Bavarian police apparatus as the State Commissioner (Staatskommissar) for the Bavarian Interior Ministry on 9 March 1933. In this post, he controlled all the security apparatus of the state. He advocated the establishment of special protective custody facilities that resulted in Heinrich Himmler, then Acting Police President in Munich, soon setting up the first Nazi concentration camp in Dachau. On 23 March, Wagner was made a member of the Sturmabteilung (SA) with the rank of SA-Gruppenführer and he would be promoted to SA-Obergruppenführer on 9 November 1937. On 12 April 1933, he was formally appointed interior minister and also Deputy Minister-President of Bavaria. He thus wielded enormous power in both the party and the government, despite nominally reporting to Reichsstatthalter (Reich Governor) Franz Ritter von Epp. He was elected a deputy to the Reichstag in November 1933 for electoral constituency 24, Upper Bavaria-Swabia. On 28 November 1936, he was also made Bavarian Minister for Education and Culture. In May 1934, Wagner secured an appointment on the staff of Deputy Führer, Rudolf Hess to head a task force charged with reform of the Reich structure. An opponent of federalism, Wagner advocated for more centralized control by the Party. By February 1935, Wagner produced a lengthy report titled “Reconstruction of the Reich” calling for the placement of all legislative and executive decision-making power in the hands of Party officials, leaving the State authorities as mere administrative entities. It envisioned new