Gauleiter of Danzig. - German Leadership | Gallery

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#1

Gauleiter of Danzig.

Colour portrait 'photo of Albert Forster by Heinrich Hoffmann, 1941. Forster seems to have been a practical administrator, for good and ill. Operating in an area where the issue of "Germanisation" was ultra-sensitive, he favoured dealing with the problem by "Germanising" just about anybody who could answer "Ja" to the question of whether they were German. This may have helped to minimise tensions in his (in reality) pretty diverse Gau. On the other hand, he hardly helped his colleagues by determinedly resisting the "resettlement" of Jews in his area of authority; as a result, large numbers of transported Jews were further transported to the Government-General of Poland, ending up in the maw of Aktion Reinhard. Understandably, he was not regarded with great affection by the SS, or by Nazi administrators in the G-G; nor was he very enthusiastic about them. In the end, he was complicit in murder to an extent sufficient to lead to his condemnation and execution by Poland after the war. Best regards, JR.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://ww2incolor.com/gallery/german-leadership/30731/gauleiter-of-danzig.
#2

Good post,JR. When I have the time I will look for info on this man. In the meantime I do have a question, what do you mean by "In the end, he was complicit in murder to an extent sufficient to lead to his condemnation and execution by Poland after the war"? Cheers, Neutral.

#3
#4

It states in “The Nazis - A Warning from History” that although a card carrying National Socialist, Forster did not buy in to the racial theories of the Third Reich, and had been heard to joke that “If I looked like Himmler, I wouldn’t go on about the idea of race so much”
Also, I think there may be something fishy about his death. My copy of “Encyclopedia of the Third Reich” was printed before the fall of Communism in Poland, and it lists Forster as still alive. Therefore, one suspects that the Communists hushed up his death and it was not publicised until later. They were not shy about executing Hoess, so why the cover up with Forster. Could it be that he was not deserving of his sentence? Why wait until 1952?