Arthur Greiser Arthur Karl Greiser ( 22 January 1897 – 21 July 1946 ) was a Nazi German politician , SS - Obergruppenführer and Reichsstatthalter ( Reich Governor ) of the German - occupied territory of Wartheland . He was one of the persons primarily responsible for organizing the Holocaust in Poland and numerous other crimes against humanity . Arrested by the Americans in 1945 , he was tried , convicted and executed by hanging in Poland in 1946 . Early life and career . Born in Schroda ( Środa Wielkopolska ) , Province of Posen , Imperial Germany , Greiser was the son of a minor local bailiff ( " Gerichtsvollzieher " ) . He learned to speak Polish fluently during his childhood . In 1903 , he enrolled in elementary school , which was followed by two years of intermediate school and finally the Königlich - Humanistisches Gymnasium ( Royal Humanities Secondary School ) in Hohensalza , which he left in 1914 without receiving a diploma . In August 1914 , he volunteered to join the Imperial German Navy . He served in the Kiel harbor naval forts at Korugen , Falckenstein , and in the fortress tower of Laboe from August , 1914 to July , 1915 . He was then assigned as an artillery observer in Flanders as well as participating in minesweeping operations in Friedrichsort . In April , 1917 , he volunteered for service in the Naval Flying Corps where he initially served as an observer with SEE I and II and then with Küstenfliegerstaffel I and II . From August , 1917 to August , 1918 , he was assigned as a naval aviator to Marine Schutzstaffel I . During this time , he was transferred to Seeflugstation Flandern II ( Ostende ) and he later flew with the Seefrontstaffel and MFJ IV . From December , 1917 to January , 1918 , he was attached to the KE - Schule Langfuhr ( near Danzig ) . While deployed to combat duty , he flew missions over the North Sea between the southern English and Belgian coasts . He was later shot down and wounded by gunfire . On 30 September 1919 , he was classified as 50 % war - disabled and discharged from naval service . He earned the Iron Cross ( First and Second Class ) , the Honour Cross of the World War 1914 / 1918 and a Wound Badge in Black in 1914 . From 1919 to May 1921 , he served in the Freikorps " Grenzschutz Ost " and fought in the Baltic states . Beginning career in the Nazi Party . Greiser was fanatically anti - Christian and an early member of the Nazi Party ( number 166 , 635 ) . After many years with the nationalist Deutschsoziale Partei ( DtSP ) founded by Richard Kunze and membership in the Stahlhelm in the mid - 1920s , he joined the NSDAP and SA on 1 November 1929 . He joined the SS on 30 June 1931 and was later awarded the Golden Party Badge . He was the Senate President ( Senatspräsident ) of the Free City of Danzig ( Gdańsk , Poland ) in 1935 – 1939 , and the administrator ( Reichsstatthalter und Gauleiter ) of Reichsgau Wartheland ( 1939 – 1945 ) . As Senate President of Danzig , he was described as a “ hothead ” and was a serious rival to his nominal superior Albert Forster , Gauleiter of the city since 1930 . Greiser was part of the SS empire whilst Forster was closely aligned to the Nazi Party Mandarins Rudolf Hess and later Martin Bormann . Greiser was directly responsible for escalating tensions between the Free City and the Republic of Poland in 1939 . When the Polish Foreign Affairs Minister Józef Beck threatened economic reprisals following the harassment of Polish frontier guards and customs officers , Greiser issued an announcement on 29 July 1939 declaring that the Danzig police no longer recognised their authority or power , and demanded their immediate withdrawal . The notice was so rudely worded that the Polish diplomatic representative to Danzig , Marian Chodacki , refused to forward it to Beck and instead sent a court summary . World War II . Immediately following the German invasion of Poland , Greiser was transferred from Danzig and appointed “ Chef der Zivilverwaltung im Militärbezirk Posen ” or Chief of Civil Administration in the military district of Greater Poland , which was annexed to the German Reich on 8 September 1939 . The military administration ended the following month , and he was then appointed Gauleiter ( 21 October ) and " Reichsstatthalter für den Reichsgau Posen " ( 26 October ) . On 29 January 1940 , the region was renamed Reichsgau Wartheland . The territory was potentially very rich - the Prussian Imperial province of Posen had been the breadbasket of Wilhelmine Germany before 1914 , possessed an excellent rail and road network , and a comparatively healthy and well educated workforce ; Litzmanstadt ( Łódź ) had developed a fairly sophisticated industrial base during the 19th century . Although every Gauleiter was expected to fully Germanize his assigned area by any means , Greiser emphasized brutality to achieve this goal . He was an ardent racist who enthusiastically pursued an ' ethnic cleansing ' program to rid the Warthegau of Poles and to resettle the ' cleansed ' areas with ethnic Germans . This was along the lines of the racial theories espoused by Reichsführer - SS Heinrich Himmler . Mass expulsions of Poles from the Warthegau to the General Government and summary executions were the norm . A Polish servant in Greiser ' s house described him as " a powerfully built figure . He was a tall man , 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 Poles , he treated them with great contempt . For him the Poles were slaves , good for nothing but work " . Greiser himself stated his beliefs : " If , in past times , other peoples enjoyed their century - long history by living well , and doing so by getting foreign peoples to work for them without compensating them accordingly and without meting out justice to them , then we too , as Germans want to learn from this history . No longer must we stand in the wings ; on the contrary , we must altogether become a master race ! " . He commenced an anti - church program that cut off church support from the state and from outside influences such as the Vatican and Germany . In July 1940 he instituted Bormann ' s anti - church " thirteen point " measures in the territory . The anti - church measures , which had Hitler ' s approval , suggest how the Nazis aimed to de - church German society . In addition to mass deportation , Greiser ' s district was also at the forefront of " internal " racial cleansing according to Nazi ideals . His subordinate Wilhelm Koppe provided the ' Special Detachment ( Sonderkommando ) Lange ' to the nearby Gau of East Prussia during May and June 1940 . This SS squad gassed 1558 patients from mental asylums at the Soldau concentration camp and then returned to his region to continue this process . Greiser was also involved in the resettlement of German refugees from lands annexed to the Soviet Union in 1939 ando 1940 . Between October and December 1939 , nearly 60 , 000 Volksdeutsche arrived in Germany from the Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia . Evidently Wilfried Strik - Strikfeldt ( later employed as translator for General Andrey Vlasov ) was in this group , as he " resettled " in Posen . Neighbouring Gauleiter and rival Albert Forster refused them entry , and they were largely settled in properties seized from Poles in Poznań and across the Wartheland . However even Greiser was wary , noting that many were elderly and urbanized aristocrats with a strong class consciousness , not the virile peasant warrior types idolized by the SS . Closer to his heart were the over 100 , 000 Volksdeutsche who were evacuated from Volhynia and eastern Galicia . These were mostly farmers and rural people , and , learning from the Baltic experience , Łódź in eastern Wartheland was designated the main Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle ( VoMi ) reception centre . In May 1940 a further 30 , 000 Volksdeutsche were relocated from the Nazi General Government of Poland to Greiser ’ s domain . After 1941 a further 300 , 000 Volksdeutsche were evacuated from Russia and Ukraine to Wartheland during the German invasion and occupation of the Soviet Union . Greiser ’ s Poznań was considered the Germanised city par excellence , and on 3 August 1943 he hosted a national gathering of Gauleiter and senior Nazis , including Martin Bormann , Joseph Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler . Holocaust . SS - Obergruppenführer Greiser was not only fully aware of the Holocaust but actively participated in it . Early in 1940 , Greiser is on record challenging Hermann Göring over efforts to delay the expulsion of Łódź Jews to Poland . On 18 September 1941 , Reichsführer - SS Heinrich Himmler informed Greiser that he intended to transfer 60 , 000 Czech and German Jews to the Łódź ghetto until spring 1942 , when they would be " resettled " . The first transport arrived a few weeks later , and Greiser sought and received permission from Himmler to kill 100 , 000 Jews in his area . He then instructed HSSPF Wilhelm Koppe to manage the overcrowding . Koppe and SS - Sturmbannführer Herbert Lange proceeded to manage the problem by experimenting at a country estate at Chełmno nad Nerem with gas vans , establishing the first extermination unit which ultimately carried out the mass murder of approximately 150 , 000 Jews between late 1941 and April 1942 . Furthermore on 6 October 1943 Greiser hosted a national assembly of senior SS officers in Posen at which Himmler candidly spoke of the mass executions of civilians ( the infamous Posen Speech ) . On 20 January 1945 , Greiser ordered a general evacuation of Posen ( having received a telegram from Bormann relaying Hitler ' s order to leave the city ) . Greiser left the city the same evening and reported to Himmler ' s personal train in Frankfurt am Oder . There Greiser found that he had been tricked by Bormann . Hitler had announced that Posen must be held at all costs , and Greiser was now viewed as a deserter and coward , particularly by Goebbels , who in his diary on 2 March 1945 labeled Greiser " a real disgrace to the ( Nazi ) Party " , but his recommendations for punishment after the capture of Poznań were ignored . He surrendered to the Americans in Austria with SS - Obergruppenführer Heinz Reinefarth in 1945 . Trial and execution . After the war , the Polish government ( the Supreme National Tribunal ) tried him for war crime s . His defense that he was only following orders did not hold up as it was shown that other Gauleiters had not followed a similar policy . For example , Albert Forster , Gauleiter of Danzig - West Prussia ( the other German - annexed section of occupied Poland ) , simply declared all Poles in his area who were reasonably proficient in German to be Germans ( although he was guilty of the elimination of the Jewish population under his jurisdiction either by murder or deportation ) . Greiser ' s advocates , Stanisław Hejmowski and Jan Kręglewski , tried to convince the Tribunal that Greiser , as a head of formally independent state , the Free City of Danzig , could not be judged by another country , an argument rejected by the court . Greiser was convicted of : The Tribunal decided that Greiser was guilty of all charges and sentenced him to death by hanging , civil death , and confiscation of all his property . In the early morning of 21 July 1946 he was transported from prison to the slope of Fort Winiary where he was hanged before a large crowd . It was the last public execution in Poland .