Josef Buhler Represented General Government

Josef B;hler was a lawyer by education – like most of the attendees of Wannsee Conference. He studied law at the universities in Munich, Kiel, Berlin and Erlangen. He earned a Doctor of Law degree and passed the state law examination in 1930.

That year, he joined the Munich law firm of Hans Frank, who regularly defended Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in court… and was the close associate of the latter ever since (he was even executed in the same manner – by hanging).

After Frank was appointed as a minister without portfolio in Hitler’s cabinet, he brought B;hler into his ministerial office in 1938. Just before the outbreak of the war, B;hler was conscripted into the German Army but Frank obtained his release.

After the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany in September 1939, Frank was appointed Governor General for the occupied Polish territories at the end of October and B;hler accompanied him to Krak;w.

On 8 December, B;hler was made head of the Governor General’s office with the rank of Ministerialdirektor. On March 8, 1940, he was promoted to State Secretary. After Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Frank’s Deputy Governor General, departed to become the Reichskommissar of the occupied Netherlands in May 1940, B;hler became acting Frank’s deputy, a designation that was made permanent in June 1941.

Though not given the formal title of Deputy Governor General, as State Secretary he was Frank’s chief deputy and represented him during his absences. Hence, he was the natural choice to represent Frank at Wannsee Conference.

The minutes of the meeting document B;hler stating that the General Government would welcome the launch of the Final Solution in its territory, and he stressed the importance of solving the “Jewish Question” in the General Government as quickly as possible as three million of Jews under his control were simply unmanageable.

When Adolf Eichmann was asked at his 1961 trial in Jerusalem what was meant by this statement, he answered that B;hler clarified that they all should be killed. Which was, most likely, true.

After the war, B;hler was arrested by the Americans and testified in Frank’s defense at the Nuremberg Trials, denying all knowledge of the Holocaust (which was not true) and trying to deflect all blame onto the SS (ditto). In May of 1946, he was extradited to Poland to face trial for his horrific crimes committed during Nazi occupation.

The trial was a judicial farce, but B;hler was guilty as sin – and got what he deserved. B;hler was executed by hanging on August 22, 1948 at Montelupich Prison in Krak;w.