Born in the Palatinate. Fought in World War I; subsequently worked as a teacher and fought the French occupation in his home region. In 1925, he left the teaching profession and became a major Nazi Party activist in the Rhineland, attaining the post of Gauleiter. In 1930, he was elected to the Reichstag as a Nazi deputy from the Saar region. When Germany reclaimed the Saar in 1935, Buerckel was named Reichskommissar for the area. In 1938, after the annexation of Austria, he became the Gauleiter of Vienna and the Reichsstatthalter of Austria.
