Paul Giesler (15 June 1895-8 May 1945) was the German Nazi Gauleiter of Westphalia-South from 8 November 1941 to 26 January 1943 (succeeding Josef Wagner and preceding Albert Hoffmann) and Gau Munich-Upper Bavaria from 23 June 1942 to 8 May 1945 (succeeding Adolf Wagner), Minister-President of Bavaria from 2 November 1942 to 28 April 1945 (succeeding Ludwig Siebert and preceding Fritz Schaffer), and Interior Minister of Nazi Germany from 30 April to 5 May 1945 (succeeding Heinrich Himmler and preceding Wilhelm Stuckart).
Biography[]
Paul Giesler was born in Siegen, Westphalia, German Empire in 1895, and he served as a lieutenant in the Imperial German Army during World War I before training as an architect. He was a member of the DNVP before joining the NSDAP, serving as a party speaker in 1924 before becoming a district leader in 1929 and a member of the SA in 1931. He was elected to the Reichstag in 1933, and he only narrowly missed being purged during the "Night of the Long Knives" in 1934. He served in Poland and France at the start of World War II, and he served as Gauleiter of Westphalia-South from 1941 to 1943 and of Munich-Upper Bavaria from 1942 to 1945, concurrently serving as Minister-President of Bavaria from 1942 to 1945 and as Interior Minister of the German Reich in 1945. He spoke out against higher education for women, and he suppressed the "White Rose" German Resistance movement. During the last days of Nazi Germany, he presided over the cruel punishment of "defeatists", and he, his wife, and their children committed suicide at the Berchtesgaden on 8 May 1945 rather than be captured by the US Army.