After Hitler's appointment as Reich Chancellor on January 30, 1933, the National Socialists began with the so-called Gleichschaltung. The "Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of the People and the State", issued on February 28, 1933, suspended elementary basic rights and formed the basis for the restructuring of public administration.

In March 1933, the NSDAP won the local elections in Wiesbaden with 48.5 percent of the vote, whereupon the national-liberal mayor Georg Krücke (opens in a new tab) (1880-1961) was placed under police supervision on election day. On March 31, 1933, municipal self-government was dissolved by the "Provisional Act on the Alignment of the Länder with the Reich". The National Socialists removed dissenting employees from the civil service. On June 3, 1933, Krücke resigned from his office after considerable pressure was exerted on him. The Wiesbaden National Socialists supported the appointment of the engineer and civil servant Alfred Schulte (opens in a new tab) (1872-1957), who had joined the NSDAP on May 1, 1933, to the office of Lord Mayor.

Schulte had worked in the Wiesbaden city administration since 1903. He had many years of experience as a salaried city councillor and non-party mayor. Schulte was appointed the first NSDAP mayor on December 6, 1933. As Lord Mayor, he played a part in establishing and consolidating the Nazi regime and its structures at municipal level. Schulte was not directly involved in the disenfranchisement of the Jewish population, among others, but supported the Nazi policy of exclusion. He retired from office on March 31, 1937 due to his age.

Schulte was succeeded as the second NSDAP mayor by Erich Mix (1898-1971). Mix, who came from West Prussia, had a doctorate in law and was an administrative expert. During the First World War (opens in a new tab), he had served as a pilot, among other things. From 1931 to 1933, he was mayor of Stolp in Pomerania. He joined the NSDAP in 1932 and the SS in 1933. In 1933 he held the office of mayor in Stettin and in 1934 he was appointed Lord Mayor of Tilsit. The move to Wiesbaden was the next step in the civil servant's career. Mix was appointed Lord Mayor of Wiesbaden on April 1, 1937. As Lord Mayor, Mix was responsible, among other things, for the purchase of so-called Jewish houses for municipal purposes, i.e. their "Aryanization". As head of the municipal fire department, he was involved in the destruction of Wiesbaden's synagogues during the November pogroms of 1938. Mix contributed to the persecution and deportation of Wiesbaden's Jews, Sinti and Roma as well as to the exploitation of forced labor in the Wiesbaden city administration. In 1939, Mix was drafted into military service in the air force. His deputy, NSDAP mayor Felix Piékarski (1890-1965), was in charge of the city administration during Mixʼs absence. Mix initially served as a lieutenant colonel with Jagdgeschwader 53 in Wiesbaden-Erbenheim and then took over command of the III Group of Jagdgeschwader 2 in France in 1940. In 1942, he served as squadron commander in the occupied Netherlands and was promoted to colonel in the reserve. From 1943, he headed the command authority of the Bretagne fighter squadron. Shortly before the end of the war, he was trained as an NS-Führungsoffizier and appointed SS-Standartenführer.

After the end of the Second World War, Erich Mix was captured and interned. After an appeal, a trial by the Spruchkammer from February 1947 ended with his classification as a "minor incriminate", which was further mitigated by his downgrading to the group of "fellow travelers" after he was placed on probation. Mix was then able to rejoin the municipal service in 1949 and, as chairman of the municipal finance and economic committee, processed restitution claims from Wiesbaden Jews whom he had had expropriated between 1937 and 1939. From 1952 to 1954, he was a city councillor for the FDP. In 1953/54, he held the office of head of the city council. On February 25, 1954, Erich Mix was elected Lord Mayor of the state capital of Wiesbaden, his second term in office. In 1960, he left office after the local elections and moved into state politics. He was a member of the state parliament from 1958 to 1966, chairman of the FDP parliamentary group from 1961 to 1963 and vice president of the state parliament from 1962 to 1966. Erich Mix died on April 9, 1971.

After his death, the state capital of Wiesbaden donated an honorary grave to Erich Mix, which was only revoked by the city council in 2014 after intensive discussion and on the basis of Philipp Kratz's dissertation.

In his dissertation "Eine Stadt und die Schuld" (A City and Guilt), Kratz worked out Erich Mix's dual career in the Wiesbaden city administration. A social debate about perpetration in the city administration had hardly taken place until then. With a lecture organized by the Jewish Community of Wiesbaden and the city archive in 2019, Philipp Kratz provided the impetus to replace the photo portrait of Mix in the gallery of city council leaders in the council meeting room with a curriculum vitae in order to draw attention to Mix's involvement in Nazi injustice.