Paul Giesler

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Paul Giesler
Reichsminister of the Interior
In office
30 April 1945 – 2 May 1945
Appointed byAdolf Hitler
PresidentKarl Dönitz
ChancellorJoseph Goebbels
Preceded byHeinrich Himmler
Succeeded byWilhelm Stuckart
Personal details
Born
Paul Heinrich Hermann Giesler

(1895-06-15)15 June 1895
Royal Prussian Army
German Army
Years of service1914–1918
1939–1940
RankLeutnant of reserves
Hauptmann of reserves
Unit1st Foot Guards Regiment
2nd Foot Guards Regiment
Battles/warsWorld War I
World War II
Military awardsIron Cross 1st and 2nd class
Clasp to the Iron Cross 2nd Class
War Merit Cross, 1st and 2nd class
Wound Badge

Paul Giesler (15 June 1895 – 8 May 1945) was a German

Ministerpräsident of Bavaria. He was responsible for multiple acts of brutality, which included killing opponents of the regime in southern Germany. He committed suicide together with his wife in the closing days of the war in Europe
.

Early life

Paul Giesler was born in

Der Stahlhelm. He studied architecture at the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences and the Technische Universität Darmstadt until 1921, and became a self-employed architect in Siegen between 1922 and 1933.[1]

SA and political career

Giesler first joined the

Nazi seizure of power in January 1933. On 2 May 1933, his units participated in the attack on and destruction of the Siegen offices of the General German Trade Union Federation, when the Nazis suppressed and outlawed the German labor unions. Giesler was promoted to the rank of SA-Brigadeführer on 20 April 1934.[2]

However, during the

Ostfriesland. This was followed in September 1936 by a stint as chief of staff to SA-Gruppe Hochland with headquarters in Munich. He remained there until June 1938 when, following the Anschluss, he was charged with organizing the SA in the newly-acquired Austrian territory and was named leader of the SA-Gruppe Alpenland in Linz, a post he would hold until September 1941.[3]

During these years, Giesler also pursued a political career. Although he was defeated in the April 1932 election to the

Prussian Landtag, he served a term on the Siegen City Council from April 1933 to April 1934. In November 1933, he was elected as a deputy to the Reichstag from electoral constituency 18 (Westphalia-South). He would serve until the fall of the Nazi regime, switching to constituency 14 (Weser-Ems) at the March 1936 and April 1938 elections, and returning to the Westphalia-South seat in March 1942.[2]

When the

Second World War began, Giesler volunteered for service with the army and participated in the Polish and French campaigns. With the rank of Hauptmann, he was an infantry company commander, was wounded in France and was awarded the Clasp to the Iron Cross, 2nd class.[4]

Gauleiter in Westphalia and Bavaria

In August 1941, at the instigation of

Ministerpräsident Hermann Göring appointed him to the Prussian State Council.[5]

On 23 June 1942, Giesler was made Acting Gauleiter of

Ludwig Siebert's death on 1 November 1942, Giesler succeeded him as both Acting Ministerpräsident and Acting Minister of Finance and Economics of Bavaria. On 16 November 1942, he was appointed the Reich Defense Commissioner for both his Gaue. On 30 January 1943, he was promoted to SA-Obergruppenführer. When Wagner died on 12 April 1944, Giesler was made permanent in all his Party and government posts in Munich. On 25 September 1944, he additionally was made the commander of the Nazi militia forces, the Volkssturm, in his Gau.[6] Giesler, an unquestioning follower of Hitler, ruled Bavaria with ruthless efficiency and almost unlimited power in the last years of the war.[7]

The graves of Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst, White Rose student resistance leaders murdered by the Nazis on 22 February 1943

On 13 January 1943, Giesler gave a speech commemorating the 470th anniversary of the founding of the

Ludwig Maximilian University. In the audience was Sophie Scholl, a member of the White Rose student resistance movement. Giesler criticized the male students who had not been called up for military service and said that suitable employment contributing to the war effort would be found for them. He was particularly scornful and insulting to the female students, stating that they should be delivering babies for the Führer instead of taking up spaces in the university. For those not attractive enough to find a mate, he said, he would assign one of his adjutants to undertake this task, guaranteeing a "pleasurable experience". This caused an uproar by the students, many of whom tried to leave the hall, resulting in a fierce scuffle with the police.[8] This was followed by a public anti-Nazi student demonstration on the streets of Munich, the first in Nazi Germany.[9] The speech contributed to the students' decision to produce their sixth and last pamphlet denouncing the Nazi regime on 18 February. After the capture of Sophie and the other White Rose ringleaders, including Hans Scholl and Christoph Probst, Giesler advocated the utmost punishment, including public execution.[10] The students were hastily tried and convicted before the President of the People's Court, Roland Freisler, on 22 February and were sent to the guillotine the same day.[11]


Repressive actions towards the end of the Second World War

As American troops approached Munich, Giesler was reported to be planning the murder of the surviving inmates at

International Military Tribunal that he was ordered by Giesler to use his influence with the commandant of Dachau (SS-Obersturmbannführer Eduard Weiter) to have 25,000 prisoners shot when the U.S. Army approached. If this couldn't be done, then Giesler, in his capacity as a Reich Defense Commissioner, would order the Luftwaffe to bomb the camp. Eberstein refused to order the shooting of the prisoners and stated that it would be impossible to find any Luftwaffe commander that would give the order to bomb. Giesler then said he would poison the prisoners. Eberstein claimed he stopped Giesler by obtaining an order from Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler to simply surrender the camps. Giesler then fired Eberstein for "defeatism" on 20 April, on orders from Bormann.[12][13]

In April 1945, Giesler was appointed Reich Defense Commissioner-South and, in addition to his own Gau, was placed in charge of

Reichsgau Upper Danube and Reichsgau Tirol-Vorarlberg. At this time, he authorized some of the worst of the violence directed against so-called "defeatists" and those seeking to surrender in order to avoid further pointless death and destruction. As the American troops approached Munich on 27 April, an uprising known as the Freiheitsaktion Bayern (Bavarian Freedom Action) broke out, led by Hauptmann Rupprecht Gerngroß who seized the radio station and called on troops to lay down their arms and arrest the Nazi leaders, and encouraged citizens to display white flags of surrender. Giesler took the lead in brutally quelling the revolt with help from the Gestapo and SS units. Although Gerngroß and others escaped, some 40 people were killed. In another infamous incident known as the Penzberger Mordnacht (Penzberg Murder Night), citizens of Penzberg, 50 kilometers south of Munich, led by the former Social Democratic mayor Hans Rummer [de], revolted to prevent the destruction of the local coal mine, a major employer in the region. Giesler, on the night of 28-29 April, ordered the hanging without trial of 16 men and women, one of whom was pregnant. Having repeatedly demonstrated his fanatical loyalty to the Nazi regime, Giesler was named to replace Himmler as the Reichsminister of the Interior in Adolf Hitler's will of 29 April 1945, though he never actually assumed this post.[14] When it was reported to Giesler that three people had been shot in another incident in Burghausen he retorted: "What, only three?"[15]

Death

Accounts of Giesler's death vary, but the most widely accepted is that he fled Munich toward Berchtesgaden on 30 April 1945, together with his wife and mother-in-law, to avoid falling captive to American troops. On 2 May, Giesler shot his wife and himself, and his mother-in-law ingested poison. Giesler alone survived and was taken to a military hospital in Stanggaß [de] where he succumbed to his wounds on 8 May 1945. A local physician, Dr. Gottschalk, certified Giesler's death on that date, and he was buried in the cemetery in nearby Berchtesgaden on 10 May. His remains were later disinterred and reburied elsewhere.[16]

SA ranks

SA ranks[1]
Date Rank
15 September 1931 SA-Sturmbannführer
1 July 1932 SA-Standartenführer
15 November 1933 SA-Oberführer
20 April 1934 SA-Brigadeführer
9 November 1937 SA-Gruppenführer
30 January 1943 SA-Obergruppenführer

Awards and decorations

The following were Giesler's military and civilian awards and decorations:[17]

Portrayal in film

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Miller & Schulz 2012, p. 232.
  2. ^ a b Miller & Schulz 2012, pp. 232–233.
  3. ^ Miller & Schulz 2012, pp. 233–234.
  4. ^ Miller & Schulz 2012, pp. 232, 234.
  5. ^ Miller & Schulz 2012, p. 235.
  6. ^ Miller & Schulz 2012, pp. 235–236, 239.
  7. ^ Bosl, Karl (1983), Bosls Bayerische biographie, pp. 245–255
  8. ^ Holzberg, Niklas. "Lycurgus in Leaflets and Lectures: The Weiße Rose and Classics at Munich University, 1941–45". Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics. 23 (1 (Spring/Summer 2015)): 38.
  9. ^ Shirer 1960, p. 1023.
  10. ^ Wolfgang Görl (4 May 2020). "Weltkriegsende: Was aus Münchens Nazi-Größen wurde". Süddeutsche Zeitung (in German). Retrieved 6 January 2024.
  11. ^ Miller & Schulz 2012, p. 237.
  12. ^ International Military Tribunal, Trial of the Major War Criminals, Day 195
  13. ^ Yerger 1997, p. 41.
  14. ^ Miller & Schulz 2012, pp. 241–242.
  15. ^ Kershaw 2011, p. 344.
  16. ^ Miller & Schulz 2012, p. 231.
  17. ^ Miller 2015, pp. 491–492.

Sources

External links
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