Beginning Career in The Nazi Party
Greiser was an early member of the Nazi Party (number 166,635). After many years with the nationalist Deutschsoziale Partei (DtSP) founded by von Kunze, and membership of the Stahlhelm in the mid-1920s, he joined the NSDAP and SA on 1 November 1929. He joined the SS on 30 June 1931, and was later awarded the Golden Party Badge.
He was the Senate President (Senatspräsident) of the Free City of Danzig (Gdańsk, Poland) in 1935–1939, and the administrator (Reichsstatthalter und Gauleiter) of Reichsgau Wartheland (1939–1945). As Senate President of Danzig, he was described as a “hothead” and was a serious rival to his nominal superior Albert Forster, Gauleiter of the city since 1930. Greiser was part of the SS empire whilst Forster was closely aligned to the Nazi Party Mandarins Rudolf Hess and later Martin Bormann.
Greiser was directly responsible for escalating tensions between the Free City and the Republic of Poland in 1939. When the Polish Foreign Affairs Minister Józef Beck threatened economic reprisals following the harassment of Polish frontier guards and customs officers, Greiser issued an announcement on 29 July 1939 declaring that the Danzig police no longer recognised their authority or power, and demanded their immediate withdrawal. The notice was so rudely worded that the Polish diplomatic representative to Danzig, Marian Chodacki, refused to forward it to Beck and instead sent a court summary.
Read more about this topic: Arthur Greiser
Famous quotes containing the words beginning, career, nazi and/or party:
“Mathematics ... would certainly have not come into existence if one had known from the beginning that there was in nature no exactly straight line, no actual circle, no absolute magnitude.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“I doubt that I would have taken so many leaps in my own writing or been as clear about my feminist and political commitments if I had not been anointed as early as I was. Some major form of recognition seems to have to mark a woman’s career for her to be able to go out on a limb without having her credentials questioned.”
—Ruth Behar (b. 1956)
“Humor is not a mood but a way of looking at the world. So if it is correct to say that humor was stamped out in Nazi Germany, that does not mean that people were not in good spirits, or anything of that sort, but something much deeper and more important.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“Most adults will do anything to avoid going to a party where they don’t know anyone. But for some reason we may be impatient with the young child who hesitates on the first day of school, or who recoils from the commotion of a birthday party where there are no familiar faces.”
—Cathy Rindner Tempelsman (20th century)