Friedrich Karl Florian (4 February 1894 – 24 October 1975) was the ''

Gauleiter A ''Gauleiter'' () was a regional leader of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) who served as the head of a ''Administrative divisions of Nazi Germany, Gau'' or ''Reichsgau''. ''Gauleiter'' was the third-highest Ranks and insignia of the Nazi Party, rank in ...

'' of Gau Düsseldorf throughout its existence in

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

Early life

The son of a

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

n railway master, Florian moved in his youth to

East Prussia East Prussia was a Provinces of Prussia, province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1772 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 1871); following World War I it formed part of the Weimar Republic's ...

. After graduating from the gymnasium in

Stallupönen Nesterov (), until 1938 known by its German language, German name (; ) and in 1938-1946 as Ebenrode, is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, town and the administrative center of Nesterovsky District in Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia, locate ...

he became a mining official in Buer in the Prussian

Province of Westphalia The Province of Westphalia () was a Provinces of Prussia, province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia from 1815 to 1946. In turn, Prussia was the largest component state of the German Empire from 1871 to 1918, of the Weimar ...

. In August 1914, he volunteered for military service in

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

as a ' and was assigned to the 1st (1st East Prussian) Grenadiers "Crown Prince" Regiment (Garrison:

Königsberg Königsberg (; ; ; ; ; ; , ) is the historic Germany, German and Prussian name of the city now called Kaliningrad, Russia. The city was founded in 1255 on the site of the small Old Prussians, Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teuton ...

). He served in this unit until 1916, when he volunteered for the ' and was assigned after training to '' Jagdstaffel 51'' in ''Jagdgeschwader'' Richthofen. Shot down and captured by British troops in May 1918, he spent the remainder of the war as a

prisoner of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...

and was released from captivity in November 1919. In the postwar years, he resumed his work as a mining official until 1929. From 1920–1922 he was a member of '' Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund'', the largest, most active, and most influential anti-Semitic federation in Germany. Active in the resistance to the French

occupation of the Ruhr The occupation of the Ruhr () was the period from 11 January 1923 to 25 August 1925 when French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr region of Weimar Republic Germany. The occupation of the heavily industrialized Ruhr district came in respons ...

, he was briefly banished from the area in 1923. He was co-founder of the Westphalia Loyalty Federation and returned to Buer in 1924. Politically, he was a leader in the

Ruhr The Ruhr ( ; , also ''Ruhrpott'' ), also referred to as the Ruhr Area, sometimes Ruhr District, Ruhr Region, or Ruhr Valley, is a polycentric urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population density of 1,160/km2 and a populati ...

area of the Völkisch-Social Bloc and the

National Socialist Freedom Movement The National Socialist Freedom Movement (, NSFB) or National Socialist Freedom Party (, NSFP) was a short-lived political party in Weimar Germany created in April 1924 during the aftermath of the Beer Hall Putsch. Adolf Hitler and many Nazi le ...

, both right-wing nationalist parties.

Nazi career

Florian joined the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...

on 18 August 1925 (membership number 16,699). He founded the local Party organization in Buer and was its '' Ortsgruppenleiter'' (Local Group Leader) from 1925 to 1927. He also joined the ''

Sturmabteilung The (; SA; or 'Storm Troopers') was the original paramilitary organisation under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party of Germany. It played a significant role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power, Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and early 1930s. I ...

'' (SA) in August 1925 as a '' Sturmführer''. He advanced to '' Kreisleiter'' (County Leader) from 1927 to 1929. He concurrently served until 1929 as the only Nazi City Councilor in

Gelsenkirchen Gelsenkirchen (, , ; ) is the List of cities in Germany by population, 25th-most populous city of Germany and the 11th-most populous in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia with 262,528 (2016) inhabitants. On the Emscher, Emscher River (a tribu ...

. On 1 October 1929, Florian was named the '' Bezirksleiter'' (District Leader) for ''

Bergisches Land The Bergisches Land (, ) is a low mountain range in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, east of the Rhine and south of the Ruhr. The landscape is shaped by forests, meadows, rivers and creeks and contains over twenty artificial lakes ...

-Niederrhein'', succeeding Fritz Hartl. When this area was upgraded to Gau status on 1 August 1930, Florian was named the first (and only) ''

'' of Gau Düsseldorf. In September 1930, he was elected as a member of the '' Reichstag'' from electoral district 22, Düsseldorf East, a seat he would retain until the fall of the Nazi regime in May 1945. In these years Florian also founded the publishing company ''Volkischer Verlag'' and the Nazi newspapers ''Wuppertaler Zeitung'' and ''Bergischer Beobachter''. In April 1932, he became a member of the

Landtag of Prussia The Landtag of Prussia () was the representative assembly of the Kingdom of Prussia implemented in 1849, a bicameralism, bicameral legislature consisting of the upper Prussian House of Lords, House of Lords (''Herrenhaus'') and the lower Prussian ...

and in September 1933 of the

Prussian State Council The Prussian State Council ( German: ''Preußischer Staatsrat'') was the second chamber of the bicameral legislature of the Free State of Prussia between 1921 and 1933; the first chamber was the Prussian Landtag (). The members of the State Cou ...

. On 25 September 1933, he was promoted to SA-''

Gruppenführer __NOTOC__ ''Gruppenführer'' (, ) was an early paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party (NSDAP), first created in 1925 as a senior rank of the SA. Since then, the term ''Gruppenführer'' is also used for leaders of groups/teams of the police, fire d ...

''. Also in 1933 he was made Chairman of the Rhenish Local Parliament and appointed to the Rhenish Provincial ''Landtag''. In 1934, he was made a member of the Prussian Provincial Council for the Rhine Province, and in 1935 was elected to the

Academy for German Law The Academy for German Law () was an institute for legal research and reform founded on 26 June 1933 in Nazi Germany. After suspending its operations during the Second World War in August 1944, it was abolished after the fall of the Nazi regime on ...

. In May 1936, he was appointed to the ''Reichsleitung'', the Nazi Party national leadership. On 30 January 1937 he attained the rank of SA-''

Obergruppenführer (, ) was a paramilitary rank in Nazi Germany that was first created in 1932 as a rank of the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA) and adopted by the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) one year later. Until April 1942, it was the highest commissioned SS rank after ...

''. On 10 November 1938, Florian played an active part in the ''

Kristallnacht ( ) or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from the Hitler Youth and German civilia ...

'' pogrom in Düsseldorf, leading SA and

Hitler Youth The Hitler Youth ( , often abbreviated as HJ, ) was the youth wing of the German Nazi Party. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926. From 1936 until 1945, it was th ...

in attacking the home of the '' Regierungspräsident'' Carl Christian Schmid, whose wife was Jewish. In the city-wide attacks on Jewish homes and businesses, five persons were killed and hundreds were injured or left homeless. On 16 November 1942, Florian was named Reich Defense Commissioner for his Gau and in October 1944 he was made head of the Düsseldorf ''

Volkssturm The (, ) was a ''levée en masse'' national militia established by Nazi Germany during the last months of World War II. It was set up by the Nazi Party on the orders of Adolf Hitler and established on 25 September 1944. It was staffed by conscri ...

'' contingent. On 23 March 1945, Florian and two other ''Gauleiters'' from the industrial Ruhr area ( Albert Hoffmann and Fritz Schlessmann) met with '' Reichsminister'' of Armaments and War Production

Albert Speer Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer (; ; 19 March 1905 – 1 September 1981) was a German architect who served as Reich Ministry of Armaments and War Production, Minister of Armaments and War Production in Nazi Germany during most of W ...

. Speer tried to convince them to ignore

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

’s Nero Decree mandating a

scorched earth A scorched-earth policy is a military strategy of destroying everything that allows an enemy military force to be able to fight a war, including the deprivation and destruction of water, food, humans, animals, plants and any kind of tools and i ...

policy ahead of the Allied armies’ advance. A rabid Nazi, Florian alone argued in favor of the policy. He read aloud a proclamation he intended to issue ordering the evacuation of the population of Düsseldorf and setting fire to all buildings, leaving the Allies a burned-out, deserted city. However, in the end, he did not issue the proclamation and was unable to implement these drastic actions before the Allies captured the city.

Postwar life

Captured by US forces on 17 April 1945 and interned at the Esterwegen concentration camp, Florian made two suicide attempts while in custody, by poison and by jumping out a third-floor window. He was charged with ordering the execution of five Düsseldorf citizens who in April 1945 had attempted to surrender the city to the US Army, but was acquitted in March 1949. Shortly afterwards in June 1949, Florian was convicted by the

denazification Denazification () was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of the Nazi ideology following the Second World War. It was carried out by removing those who had been Nazi Par ...

court and was sentenced to six years in prison and a 20,000 ''

Reichsmark The (; sign: ℛ︁ℳ︁; abbreviation: RM) was the currency of Germany from 1924 until the fall of Nazi Germany in 1945, and in the American, British and French occupied zones of Germany, until 20 June 1948. The Reichsmark was then replace ...

'' fine because of his leadership role in the Nazi Party. Taking into consideration the time already served, he was released on 1 May 1951. He then found employment as an industrial representative. He remained a convinced Nazi and maintained contact with former associates from the Nazi era. According to information obtained by British intelligence, he was a close collaborator of

Werner Naumann Werner Naumann (16 June 1909 – 25 October 1982) was a German civil servant and politician. He was State Secretary in Joseph Goebbels' Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda during the Nazi Germany era. He was appointed head of th ...

in the organization known as the

Naumann Circle The Naumann Circle (), also sometimes referred to as the Circle or the Naumann Affair, was an organization of former German adherents of the Nazi Party that was formed in the German Federal Republic (West Germany) several years after the end o ...

that attempted to infiltrate political parties in

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

in the early 1950s.

Character assessment

During his stay in Düsseldorf, the racialist, right-wing journalist Lothrop Stoddard described Florian thus: "He was a distinctly sinister-looking type; hard-faced, with a cruel eye and a still crueler mouth. A sadist, if I ever saw one. I can imagine how unpopular he must be among the good-natured, kindly Duesseldorfers".Stoddard, Lothrop
''Into the Darkness'', p.56
(New York, Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1940) (retrieved Nov. 5, 2023).

Decorations and awards

*1914

Iron Cross The Iron Cross (, , abbreviated EK) was a military decoration in the Kingdom of Prussia, the German Empire (1871–1918), and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). The design, a black cross pattée with a white or silver outline, was derived from the in ...

Second Class * Golden Party Badge, c.1933 * Honour Chevron for the Old Guard, February 1934 * The Honour Cross of the World War 1914/1918 with Swords, 1934 * Anschluss Medal, c.1938 * Sudetenland Medal, c.1939

Notes

External links

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Picture of Friedrich Karl Florian
* *

Sources

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Florian, Friedrich Karl 1894 births 1975 deaths Gauleiters German Army personnel of World War I German prisoners of war in World War I German prisoners of war in World War II held by the United States Luftstreitkräfte personnel Members of the Academy for German Law Members of the Prussian State Council (Nazi Germany) Members of the Reichstag 1930–1932 Members of the Reichstag 1932 Members of the Reichstag 1932–1933 Members of the Reichstag 1933 Members of the Reichstag 1933–1936 Members of the Reichstag 1936–1938 Members of the Reichstag 1938–1945 Military personnel from Essen Naumann Circle members Nazis convicted of crimes People acquitted of international crimes People from the Rhine Province People indicted for war crimes Prisoners and detainees of Germany Recipients of the Iron Cross (1914), 2nd class Shot-down aviators SA-Obergruppenführer Volkssturm personnel World War I prisoners of war held by the United Kingdom