Rudolf Buttmann (4 July 1885 – 25 January 1947) was a German lawyer, Bavarian State Library director and Nazi politician. Early life Rudolf Hermann Buttmann was born in Marktbreit, the son of a school teacher. After attending gymnasium in Zweibrücken, he studied law and political science at the universities of Munich, Freiburg and Berlin, which he completed in 1907 by passing his state law examination. A year later he began an internship at the Royal Bavarian Court Library in Munich. In 1910 he received his doctorate in political science from Munich University and, on 1 October of that year, he began work at the Bavarian State Parliament Library. From 1914 to 1918 he took part in the First World War with the 12th Royal Bavarian Infantry Regiment and the 18th Royal Bavarian Reserve Infantry. He attained the rank of Leutnant and received the Iron Cross, second class. Buttmann was married to Karoline Schandl in 1916, with whom he had three sons. After the end of the war in 1918, Buttmann unsuccessfully attempted to organize bourgeois and right wing elements to form a citizen militia in opposition to left wing revolutionaries in the newly proclaimed Free State of Bavaria. He also supported the Freikorps Epp against the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic, and then returned to his position with the Bavarian State Parliament Library, where he was promoted to senior librarian in 1924. During the time of the German Empire Buttmann had been a member of the National Liberal Party. After the November Revolution, he co-founded the German National People's Party (DNVP) in 1919. At this time he also became a member of the Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund, the largest and most influential anti-Semitic organization in Germany. Leaving the DNVP in 1922, he founded the Völkischen Rechtsblocks. Drawn to the nationalist and anti-Semitic platform of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party, Buttmann took part in the failed Beer Hall Putsch on 9 November 1923. After the Nazi Party was outlawed, Buttmann on 6 January 1924 co-founded the Völkische Block, a Nazi front organization. Under its banner, Buttmann was elected as one of its 23 deputies to the Bavarian Landtag in May 1924. However, when Hitler reestablished the Nazi Party on 27 February 1925, Buttmann immediately joined the NSDAP (membership number 4). Nazi Party career In September 1925, the NSDAP formed its own parliamentary bloc in the Bavarian Landtag; Buttmann was named its leader and