Fritz Wächtler (7 January 1891 – 19 April 1945) was a Nazi Party official and politician who served as the Gauleiter of the eastern Bavarian administrative region of Gau Bayreuth.

During World War II he held the honorary rank of SS-Obergruppenführer and was the Reich Defense Commissioner of Gau Bayreuth.

Prone to alcoholic outbursts and unpopular with the local residents, he eventually ran afoul of Martin Bormann in a political intrigue.

[6] At the 29 March 1936 elections, Wächtler was returned as a Reichstag Deputy for electoral constituency 25, Niederbayern (Lower Bavaria).

One assessment of his character stated: In place of the elegant, affable Schemm, a brilliant orator, there appeared the ungainly figure of the oratorically untalented and philistine Wächtler, whose dogged adherence to the Party line soon earned him the epithet ‘megalomaniac schoolteacher’.

The next day, the Reich leadership in Berlin ordered cessation of further property destruction because they feared the riots they had instigated would lead to more radical actions not under their control.

Wächtler tried to use the opportunity to force public school teachers to sign a personal oath that they would no longer teach any religious subjects.

By 1945 his additional failure to send daily situation reports to Führer Headquarters brought him to the attention and suspicion of Martin Bormann, Hitler's powerful Secretary and head of the Nazi Party Chancellery.

[16] Bormann had previously ordered the closing of the National Socialist Teachers League (NSLB) on 17 February 1943, together with all its Gau offices across Germany.

Wächtler, fearing the loss of influence, complained that the NSLB was essential for the war effort in long rambling memos to Bormann, to no avail.

On 1 April 1945, Bormann issued a further order that all Gauleiters, Kreisleiters, and other NSDAP political leaders were to fight to the death in their districts.

With much of the city in ruins and only 200 irregular defenders left, Wächtler fled Bayreuth with his staff the next day as American forces approached.

He reportedly left the bomb-ruined city in a convoy of “several lorries of food, spirits and cigarettes.”[19] He set up offices at a hotel in Waldmünchen in the southern part of the Gau near the former Czechoslovakian border, some 140 kilometers from Bayreuth.

On orders from Führer Headquarters, Ruckdeschel appeared at the hotel with 35 SS troops, pronounced a death sentence and summarily executed Wächtler by firing squad.

A posthumous denazification proceeding was held in Ansbach, and on 17 February 1949, Wächtler was classified into Group I (Major Offender) resulting in the confiscation of his entire estate.