Editing Felix Wankel (section)

==Wankel and the Nazi Party==
During the early 1920s Wankel was a member of various radical [[anti-Semitic]] organizations. In 1921 he joined the Heidelberg branch of the [[Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund]] and in 1922 he became a member of the [[NSDAP]], the National Socialist German Workers Party (or "Nazi Party"), which was banned soon afterwards. Wankel founded and led youth groups associated with a cover-up organization of the NSDAP. With them he conducted paramilitary training, scouting games and night walks.<ref>Popplow, pp. 37–41</ref> When his high esteem for technical innovations was not widely shared among the [[German Youth Movement]], he was offered instead the opportunity to talk about the issue of technology and education to [[Adolf Hitler]] and other leading National Socialists in 1928.<ref>Popplow, p. 49</ref>

In the meantime Wankel's mother, Gerty had helped founding the local chapter of the NSDAP in his hometown of [[Lahr]]. Here Wankel not only rejoined the party in 1926, but also met the local [[Gauleiter]], i.e. regional head of the NSDAP party, [[Robert Heinrich Wagner]]. In 1931 Wagner entrusted Wankel with the leadership of the [[Hitler Youth]] in Baden. But they soon fell out with each other, because Wankel tried to put a stronger emphasis on military training, whereas Wagner wished for the Hitler Youth to be a primarily political organization. In a particularly bitter and ugly controversy Wankel publicly accused Wagner of corruption. Wagner retaliated by stripping Wankel of his office by early 1932 and managed to have him expelled from the party in October 1932.

Wankel, who sympathized with the social-revolutionary wing of the NSDAP with [[Gregor Strasser]], then founded his own National Socialist splinter group in Lahr and continued his attacks on Wagner. Since the Nazis' seizure of power on 30 January 1933 had strengthened his position, Wagner had Wankel arrested and imprisoned in the Lahr jail in March 1933. Only by intervention of Hitler's economic adviser [[Wilhelm Keppler]] and Hitler himself, was Wankel set free in September 1933.<ref>Popplow, pp. 50–54</ref> A fellow native of Baden and member of [[Reichstag (Nazi Germany)|Reichstag]] from 1933 to 1945, Keppler had been a friend of Wankel and an ardent supporter of his technological endeavors since 1927. He now helped Wankel to get state contracts and his own ''Wankels Versuchs Werkstätten'' experimental workshop in [[Lindau]].

Wankel tried to rejoin the NSDAP in 1937, but was turned down.<ref name="Popplow72">Popplow, p. 72</ref> With the help of Keppler, however, he was admitted to the [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] in 1940 in the rank of [[Obersturmbannführer]].<ref>Popplow, p. 64</ref> Two years later his membership was revoked for unknown reasons.<ref name="Popplow72"/>