Artur Görlitzer
Artur Görlitzer | |
---|---|
![]() Artur Görlitzer (1936) | |
Deputy Gauleiter, Gau Berlin | |
In office March 13, 1933 – December 1943 | |
Preceded by | Hans Meinschausen |
Succeeded by | Gerhard Schach |
Personal details | |
Born | June 22, 1893 Frankfurt (Oder), Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire |
Died | April 25, 1945 (age 51) Berlin, Free State of Prussia, Nazi Germany |
Cause of death | Suicide |
Political party | Nazi Party |
Profession | Civil servant |
Military service | |
Allegiance | ![]() |
Branch/service | Imperial German Army |
Years of service | 1914–1918 |
Rank | Leutnant |
Battles/wars | World War I |
Awards | Iron Cross, 1st and 2nd class |
Artur Görlitzer, sometimes Anglicized as Arthur Goerlitzer, (June 22, 1893 – April 25, 1945) was a
Early life
Artur Görlitzer was born to a railway official in
Nazi Party career ascendency
Görlitzer joined the Nazi Party on July 1, 1928 (membership number 92,505). According to his own statements, "In order to balance the attitude of the French and the English, every German must be radically national", and that "the solution of the Jewish question is the decisive problem of life for the German people".[1]
Working his way up the Party bureaucracy in Berlin between 1928 and 1933, Görlitzer advanced from Zellenleiter (Cell Leader) to Local Group Clerk to Ortsgruppenleiter (Local Group Leader) and finally to Bezirksleiter (District Leader). Because of his political activity he was relieved of office in the Reich Finance Administration in 1930; a disciplinary procedure initiated in November 1931 was discontinued in August 1932. He went into politics and was elected as a Nazi deputy to the Landtag of Prussia on April 24, 1932, serving until its dissolution on October 14, 1933.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1f/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-2007-0731-500%2C_Feiern_zum_10-j%C3%A4hrigen_Bestehen_des_Gaues_Berlin.jpg/220px-Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-2007-0731-500%2C_Feiern_zum_10-j%C3%A4hrigen_Bestehen_des_Gaues_Berlin.jpg)
After the
Removal from office and death
By 1943, Görlitzer had been Goebbels' deputy for ten years. However, the Berlin Gauleiter was growing more critical of his deputy and suspected Görlitzer of harboring ambitions to replace him as Gauleiter. In his diary entry of March 26, 1942, Goebbels stated that he wanted to "marginalize Görlitzer more and more".[5] As early as January 6, 1940, Goebbels confided to his diary: "He's so opinionated and has false, repressed ambitions."[6] By December 1943, Goebbels succeeded in removing Görlitzer as Deputy Gauleiter. He was assigned to the East Ministry under Reichsminister Alfred Rosenberg and was briefly appointed in the spring of 1944 as General Commissioner of the General District Shitomir in the Reichskommissariat Ukraine. However, this appointment had no practical significance, as by that time the area had already been reconquered by the Red Army.
Artur Görlitzer and his wife Paula, with Berlin already surrounded by the Red Army, committed suicide there on April 25, 1945. Their son Bruno had fallen at the beginning of 1943 at Stalingrad. Their daughter Anita emigrated to the US after the war.[7]
References
- ^ Deutsches Führerlexikon 1934–1935, p.149 Retrieved June 1, 2023.
- ^ Miller & Schulz 2012, p. 20.
- ^ Lilla 2005, pp. 204, 297.
- ^ Artur Görlitzer entry in the Reichstag Database
- ^ Longerich 2015, p. 623.
- ^ Klee 2007, p. 190.
- ISBN 3933471346, p. 339.
Literature
- Das Deutsche Führerlexikon 1934-1935. Berlin: Verlagsanftalt Otto Stollberg G. m. b. H. 1934.
- Klee, Ernst (2007). Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945. Frankfurt-am-Main: Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8.
- Joachim Lilla (Editor): Extras in uniform. The members of the Reichstag 1933–1945. Düsseldorf, Droste publishing house, 2004. ISBN 3-7700-5254-4.
- Lilla, Joachim (2005). Der Prußische Staatsrat 1921–1933: Ein biographisches Handbuch. Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag. ISBN 978-3-770-05271-4.
- Longerich, Peter (2015). Goebbels: A Biography. Vintage. ISBN 978-0-099-52369-7.
- Miller, Michael D.; Schulz, Andreas (2012). Gauleiter: The Regional Leaders of the Nazi Party and Their Deputies, 1925–1945. Vol. 1 (Herbert Albrecht - H. Wilhelm Hüttmann). R. James Bender Publishing. ISBN 978-1-932-97021-0.
External links
- Literature by and about Artur Görlitzer in the German National Library catalogue
- Information about Artur Görlitzer in the Reichstag database