In 1908, Werner applied for a mandate in the Hessian state parliament for the far-right and antisemitic German Social Party (DSP) but withdrew his candidacy.

[4] The DSP disbanded in 1914 and, from 1915, Werner was chairman of its successor organization, the Deutschvölkische Partei [de] (DvP), also an antisemitic and Völkisch entity.

Shortly afterward, when the DvP dissolved and merged into the German National People's Party (DNVP) on 24 November 1918, Werner became a member of its six-member executive board.

[7] After the Nazis seized power at the national level at the end of January 1933, they instituted a policy of Gleichschaltung (coordination) by which they sought to assert their control over all the German Länder.

[8] On 6 March 1933, armed members of the Nazi paramilitary Sturmabteilung (SA) and Schutzstaffel (SS) took control of the streets of the Hesse capital, Darmstadt.

One police squad was forcibly disarmed, and SA troops prevented the State President and the Interior Minister from leaving their homes or having any telephone communications with the outside.

On 13 March 1933, the Landtag met and formally elected Werner as the State President of Hesse, replacing the Social Democrat Bernhard Adelung.

Hesse was one of only three states in March 1933, along with Hamburg and Württemberg, where a new Nazi government was formally and legally established by the legitimately elected parliament.

He then appointed Werner to the subordinate position of Minister-president and, in a reduced administration, also gave him the leadership of the education, finance, interior and justice ministries.

After a dispute over the merger of their respective chambers of commerce, Sprenger dismissed Werner on 20 September 1933 and replaced him with Philipp Wilhelm Jung.

[1] In 1936, Werner was appointed by Oberpräsident Josef Wagner as a Regierungsdirektor (government director) in Breslau (today Wrocław), where he worked as acting head of the department for higher education for the Province of Lower Silesia until 1938.

Werner also held the office of president of the Verband Deutscher Gebirgs- und Wandervereine (Association of German Mountain and Hiking Clubs), from 1933 to 1942.