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Albert Grzesinski

Albert Carl Grzesinski (28 July 1879-12 January 1948) was the Interior Minister of Prussia from 1926 to 1930.

Biography[]

Albert Lehmann was born in Treptow an der Tollense, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany in 1879, the illegitimate son of a maid. He grew up with his grandparents and assumed his stepfather's surname Grzesinski in 1892, and he joined the SPD in 1897. Grzesinski served as Under-Secretary of State in the Prussian War Ministry in 1919, as chief of the Prussian Police from 1922 to 1924, as chief of the Berlin Police from 1925 to 1926, and as Interior Minister of Prussia from 1926 to 1930, during which time he attempted to promote democracy during a time of political violence. In 1929, he banned the communist Rotfront paramilitary, and he was involved in the violent police suppression of the KPD's May Day rallies on 1 May 1929, resulting in the Blutmai riots. In 1930, following the resignation of Karl Zörgiebel as Chief of the Berlin Police, Grzesinski decided to appoint himself to return to his old office, preventing the right-winger Gottfried Wendt from obtaining a greater position of power. In 1931, he attempted to gag Adolf Hitler and deport him as an undesirable alien, but Chancellor Heinrich Bruening did not sign the order. Grzesinski was removed from his position following the 1932 Prussian Coup, and Kurt Melcher replaced him as police chief. Grzesinski was denaturalized after the Nazi seizure of power, and he fled to Switzerland in 1933, and from there to France and to America in 1937. He died in exile in Queens, New York City in 1948.

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