Following the Second World War, there were a large number of executions carried out against
those who had been convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Many German SS guards and members of staff, along with doctors were sentenced to death
for their involvement inside of the concentration camps.
There were a number who managed to escape such as Adolf Eichmann who was involved in
organising the mass killing, but one man who was involved in the organisation of the Holocaust
that did not flee and was captured was Arthur Greiser.
Following his trial, he was condemned by the Polish and was executed on a large gallows
in front of a huge crowd.
But what is the story of his crimes and also his execution?
Join us today as we look at the justified execution of Arthur Greiser, and remember
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Arthur Greiser was born in January 1897, and he had a rather normal upbringing.
As the First World War broke out, he volunteered to serve in the Imperial German Navy and was
based in a number of naval forts.
He then became an artillery observer on the Western Front, and was involved in clearing
minefields, but he then transitioned to become part of the Naval Flying Corp.
He became a naval aviator but was later shot down and wounded by gunfire, and in September
1919 he was then classified as 50% war disabled and was discharged from the Navy.
He was awarded the Iron Cross first class, and other accommodates for his time during
World War 1, but then following this he joined the German paramilitary group known as the
Freikorp who were increasingly unhappy with the new German government.
However he was a man who was deemed very anti christian, and he also became attracted early
on to the politics of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.
He was a longstanding member of the Nationalistic German Social Party, but then switched to
join the Nazis and then the SA, Hitler’s brownshirts in December 1929.
After two years in the SA, he then became a member of the SS.
He was seen by Hitler and his government as a reliable officiator, and was the deputy
president of the Free City of Danzig, and was also then made the Senate President of
the city.
He was close friends with Rudolf Hess and Martin Bormann, but as the Head of the city
he could practically do whatever he wanted in Danzig.
However he was later replaced, and was accused by Poland of escalating tensions between Danzig
and Poland.
He was involved in sending a rude message to Polish diplomats regarding the city, and
this angered the Polish politicians.
But following the German Invasion of Poland, he was transferred to become the Chief of
Civil Administration in Posen, which was then part of the German Reich.
He was then appointed the Gauleiter of Reichsgau Posen, and was also named the Reich Defence
Commissioner of a newly created military district.
He gained further titles and power and promotions in the SS, but the lands he oversaw, the Reichsgau
Wartheland was very rich.
It had good transport links and a good workforce, but Greiser would rule over it brutally.
He was a ruthless antisemite who used ethnic cleansing to force Polish people out of the
lands, and he forced them to resettle in other areas.
He was very much in line with Heinrich Himmler’s ideas, and he enforced a reign of terror regularly
executing civilians who would be defiant.
It was said that Greiser was, ‘a powerfully built figure, he was a tall man and you could
see his arrogance, his conceit.
He was so vain, so full of himself, as if there was nothing above him, a god almost.
Everybody tried to get out of his way, people had to bow to him, salute him.
And the Polish he treated with great contempt.
For him they were slaves, good for nothing but work.’
Grieser would later during a speech state, ‘No longer must we stand in the wings, we
must altogether become a master race.’
Inside of his district the Nazis were already instigating mass killing and death.
He used SS squads to gas 1558 patients from mental hospitals at the Soldau concentration
camp between May and June 1940.
He also helped to move germans into land stolen from he Soviet Union, and many ethnic germans
were moved into his lands following Operation Barbarossa.
He hated the Catholic Church, and was involved in attacking it in Germany.
He cut off support from the church, and many church officials were transported to concentration
camps or were simply shot dead.
1700 Polish priests for example were transported to Dachau, and many of them died from the
terrible conditions.
Greiser was one of those calling for harsher punishment on the clergy.
But he was also complicit and involved in the Holocaust.
From very early on he wanted the deadly policies in full effect, as he even challenged Hermann
Goring as to why it was taking so long to expel the Jews from Lodz.
He received instruction from Himmler in September 1941 that 60,000 Czech and German Jews were
to be transferred to the Lodz ghetto.
Greiser then asked permission to kill 100,000 jews in his area.
Then under his lands, gas vans were used to exterminate many, and around 150,000 Jews
were killed between autumn 1941 and April 1942.
Grieser continued at this time to also execute civilians to cause terror and strike fear
into the hearts of the population.
As the war continued he remained devoted to the Nazis, and was considered a brutal leader.
He isn’t as well known as other high ranking Nazi officials, but he was involved in the
mass murder of hundreds of thousands.
But in January 1945, he ordered an evacuation of Posen, as the Soviet Union were advancing
towards him.
He left the city and then reported to Himmler on his train.
But Greiser had been stabbed in the back, and Bormann had told him to do this, but the
order was in fact false.
Bormann had lied to secure further favour in Hitler’s eyes, and to make Arthur Grieser
look bad.
The order was actually for Posen to be held and defended, but with this Gresier was now
seen as a deserter and possibly a traitor.
But as the Americans approached Austria, Arthur Grieser then surrendered to the US Army knowing
that the war was lost in 1945.
Because a huge number of his crimes were committed agains the polish people, the Polish government
tried him for war crimes.
Greiser stated that he was simply following orders and was acting on the orders sent from
above, but this defence was not good enough.
He was seen as one of the most savage and deadly Gauleiters, and there were other’s
that were not as brutal as he was.
Because of this, Arthur Greiser was convicted of a huge amount of crimes, including genocide
and the murder of civilians and prisoners of war, torture and persecution, destruction
of Polish culture, plunder, looting, taking children against the will of their parents,
killing in the ghettos and so many more offences.
He was found guilty of these, and for this was then sentenced to death by the Polish
court.
He was sentenced to be executed by hanging.
On a sunny morning in July 1946, in Poznan Arthur Grieser was brought to his execution.
Around 15,000 civilians were there in the grounds of the citadel, a fortress which had
been reduced to rubble.
Before 7am, a car came through the crowds, and outstepped Greiser, blindfolded and dressed
in a suit.
He was flanked by two guards, and he then climbed up the steps of a gallows that had
been specially built for his execution.
On the scaffold with his hands tied behind his back, he stood without emotion and mumbled
some prayers.
He was not defiant, and neither did he ask for forgiveness.
The executioner who was dressed in black then threw the noose around his neck, and then
quickly he pushed the lever forcing Grieser to drop through the trapdoor.
Within minutes he was dead, and then the hangman took off his white gloves and threw them away,
in disgust at Grieser’s crimes.
Arthur Greiser is not the most well known Nazi, but he was one who was incredibly deadly
and brutal.
He was a scourge on the polish people during the Second World War, and was constantly executing,
killing and deporting people to many different ghettos and concentration camps.
He was a dispicable human who was involved in some of the worst crimes of the conflict,
and he ruled over his area with ruthlessness and incredible terror.
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