Alfred Meyer
Gustav Alfred Julius Meyer (5 October 1891 – 11 April 1945) was a Nazi Party official and politician. He joined the Nazi Party in 1928 and was the "Gauleiter" of North Westphalia from 1931 to 1945, the "Oberpräsident" of the Province of Westphalia from 1938 to 1945 and the "Reichsstatthalter" of Lippe and Schaumburg-Lippe from 1933 to 1945. By the time of his death at the end of World War II in Europe, he was a State Secretary and Deputy "Reichsminister" in the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories ("Reichsministerium für die Besetzten Ostgebiete" or "Ostministerium"). He  represented the ministry with Georg Leibbrandt in the Wannsee Conference. Meyer committed suicide in April 1945. Early life. Meyer was born in Göttingen, the son of a Prussian civil servant who was stationed in Göttingen due to his official duties. The middle-class family was originally from Essen. He was educated at the Gymnasium in Soest, graduating in 1911. In 1912 he became a "Fahnenjunker" (cadet officer) with Infantry Regiment 68 (Koblenz), passing his officer exam in 1913 and being promoted to "Leutnant". During World War I he fought with Infantry Regiment 363 on the Western Front, earning the Iron  Cross First and Second Class and the Wound Badge. Promoted to "Oberleutnant" in June 1916, he was wounded and captured by the French in April 1917. This experience, according to Meyer, was especially traumatic and left him with a hatred against France. Released from captivity in March 1920, the downsized "Reichswehr" had no use for him and he left the army in October with the rank of "Hauptmann" (Captain). After the war, Meyer studied jurisprudence and political science at the Universities of Bonn and then Würzburg. He graduated with a Ph.D. in 1922 and joined the legal department of a  Gelsenkirchen mining firm. In 1924, he joined the local Masonic lodge. Meyer was also the chairman of the local "Kyffhäuserbund" unit. He married Dorothee Capell in 1925 and had five daughters with her. Third Reich. In April 1928, Meyer joined the Nazi Party. The party was still extremely weak in Westphalia during the late 1920s, and had only circa three hundred members in the city of Gelsenkirchen during this period. In less than a year Meyer rose to the position of "Ortsgruppenleiter" (Local Group Leader) and in November 1929 he was promoted to "Bezirksleiter" (District Leader) of the Emscher-Lippe  district within Westphalia. In November 1929, he was also elected as the only Nazi party representative to the Gelsenkirchen city council. In September 1930 he became a member of the "Reichstag" from electoral constituency 17, North Westphalia, and on 31 January 1931 NSDAP "Gauleiter" of North Westphalia. On 14 September 1932, he was elected to the Prussian "Landtag". Following the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Meyer was appointed federal "Reichsstatthalter" (Reich Governor) of the German States of Lippe and Schaumburg-Lippe on 16 May 1933. On 1 August 1934, he was named to Hans Frank's Academy for German  Law. Additionally, he also became the "Staatsminister" (Minister of State) in charge of the state government of Lippe, succeeding Hans-Joachim Riecke effective 1 February 1936. He also was named a Minister of State in the Schaumburg-Lippe government of "Landespräsident" (State President) . Finally, on 4 November 1938 he was made "Oberpräsident" of the Prussian Province of Westphalia, thus uniting under his control the highest party and governmental offices in his jurisdictions. He was promoted to SA-"Gruppenführer" on 20 April 1936 and to SA-"Obergruppenführer" on 9 November 1938. On 6 September 1939, Meyer was made "Chef der Zivilverwaltung" (Chief of  Civil Administration) in the West. On 29 May 1940 he was appointed Acting Reich Defense Commissioner for Military District VI during the absence in Norway of Josef Terboven. On 17 July 1941 he became "Staatssekretär" (State Secretary) and Deputy to Alfred Rosenberg in the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories. Meyer was responsible for the departments of politics, administration and economics. In his role in the East, he used workers that were mainly Jewish for slave labor assigned to a variety of works. In January 1942 Meyer, as Rosenberg's representative, attended the Wannsee Conference that was called to  discuss the Final Solution. On 16 November that year, he was made Reich Defense Commissioner for his Gau, and on 25 September 1944, he became the commander of Nazi "Volksturm" forces there. Death. Meyer was found dead on 11 April 1945, by the River Weser. The cause of death was suicide, most likely prompted by Germany's impending defeat in the war. Fictional portrayals. In the 2001 HBO film "Conspiracy", Meyer was played by Brian Pettifer.