Josef Bühler

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Josef Bühler
Josef Bühler in 1942
Born(1904-02-16)16 February 1904
Died22 August 1948(1948-08-22) (aged 44)
Cause of deathExecution by hanging
Criminal statusExecuted
Conviction(s)Crimes against humanity
TrialSupreme National Tribunal
Criminal penaltyDeath
Governor General Hans Frank's Representative to the Wannsee Conference
In office
20 January 1942 – 6 March 1942
Governor GeneralHans Frank
Personal details
Political partyNazi Party (NSDAP)
EducationLaw
OccupationNazi legal officer

Josef Bühler (16 February 1904 – 22 August 1948) was a state secretary and deputy governor to the Nazi Germany-controlled General Government in Kraków during World War II. He participated in the January 1942 Wannsee Conference, at which the genocidal Final Solution to the Jewish Question was planned.

Background[edit]

Bühler was born in Bad Waldsee into a Catholic family. His father was a baker. After obtaining his degree in law, he received an appointment to work under Hans Frank, a legal advisor to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Bühler did not take up membership of the NSDAP until 1 April 1933, shortly after the Nazi rise to power.[1]

Nazi career[edit]

Hans Frank was appointed Minister of Justice for Bavaria in 1933. Bühler became a member of the Nazi Party on 1 April 1933, according to his own testimony at the Nuremberg Trials, and was appointed administrator of the Court of Munich. In 1935 he became district chief attorney.

In 1938 Hans Frank, now Reich Minister without portfolio, put him in charge of his cabinet office. After the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany in September 1939, Frank was appointed Governor-General for the occupied Polish territories and Bühler accompanied him to Kraków to take up the post of State Secretary of the General Government, also serving as Frank's deputy. He was given the honorary rank of SS-Brigadeführer by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler around this time.

Wannsee Conference and Final Solution[edit]

Bühler attended the Wannsee Conference on 20 January 1942 as the representative from the Governor General's office. During this conference, which discussed the imposition of the 'Final Solution of the Jewish Question in the German Sphere of Influence in Europe', Bühler stated to the other conference attendees the importance of solving 'the Jewish Question in the General Government as quickly as possible'.[2]

Trial and execution[edit]

After the war, Bühler testified on Frank's behalf at the Nuremberg Trials. He was later extradited to Poland and tried before the Supreme National Tribunal of Poland for crimes against humanity. Bühler was found guilty, sentenced to death, and ordered to forfeit all of his property on 10 July 1948. He was executed by hanging on 22 August at Montelupich Prison in Kraków.[citation needed]

In popular media[edit]

Bühler's death is the inciting incident in the 1992 alternate history novel Fatherland by Robert Harris. The novel postulates a long war between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, and a cold war with the United States. The novel's protagonist investigates Bühler's murder in 1964, which is part of a Gestapo effort to conceal the (by then completed) Final Solution.[3]

In the 2001 HBO film Conspiracy, which portrayed the Wannsee Conference, Bühler was played by the British actor Ben Daniels.[citation needed]

Literature[edit]

  • Internationaler Militärgerichtshof Nürnberg (Hrsg.): Der Prozess gegen die Hauptkriegsverbrecher vor dem Internationalen Militärgerichtshof (14. November 1945 bis 1. Oktober 1946). Amtlicher Text in deutscher Sprache.
  • Dr. Josef Buhler, Staatssekretär and Deputy Governor-General. Supreme National Tribunal of Poland (17TH JUNE-10TH JULY, 1948), Law-Reports of Trials of War Criminals, Selected and prepared by The United Nations War Crimes Commission, Volume XIV, London, HMSO. 1948 (englisch). (PDF)
  • Bogdan Musiał: Deutsche Zivilverwaltung und Judenverfolgung im Generalgouvernement. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1999, ISBN 3-447-04208-7; 2. unveränderte Auflage, ebd. 2004, ISBN 3-447-05063-2.
  • Friedman, Towiah: Die höchsten Nazi-Beamten im General-Gouvernement in Polen in den Kriegs-Jahren 1939–45. Inst. of Documentation in Israel for the Investigation of Nazi War Crimes, Haifa 2002[4]
  • Grimm, Hans: Dr. Josef Bühler – Impusgeber bei der Wannsee-Konferenz. In: Wolfgang Praske: Täter Helfer Trittbrettfahrer. Band 4. NS-Belastete aus Oberschwaben. Kugelberg Verlag, Gerstetten 2015, ISBN 978-3-945893-00-5, p. 70–83

References[edit]

  1. ^ Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Zweite aktualisierte Auflage, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 81.
  2. ^ Cesarani 2005, p. 114.
  3. ^ Harris, Robert (2000). Archangel; Fatherland. Cresset Editions. ISBN 0-09187-209-X.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  4. ^ Katalog-Eintrag der DNB