Mark Costa wrote:There was no gauleiter. Kutschera was in an acting capacity only. During this whole period after Klausner's official appointment,Kutschera was acting gauleiter during the periods where Klausner was ill, then continued to act as gauleiter after his death. You should not pay too much attention to the start and stop dates here. The bottom line is, after March 22, 1939, it was either Klausner or his deputy, Kutschera that ran the gau, until Rainer was appointed officially. So Kutschera was allowed to run the gau until one was appointed. This is also true with other gaus and gauleiters such as Karl Holz who ran Streicher's gau. Holz was not actually appointed an official gauleiter until late in the war -- my assumption being, that Hitler did not want to "officially" replace his old comrade Streicher, so Holz had to wait three years until getting his promotion. Yet he and later Gerland, were the only "acting" gauleiters who were granted invitations to attend the bi-annual gauleiter conferences during the war. Other acting gauleiters like Kutschera, Zimmermann, Vetter, Leyser and Schmalz were not invited. One can only guess as to why? And it is interesting to note that Holz was even referred to as "gauleiter" long before he ever was given the official title and uniform. Schlessmann also was sometimes referred to as "gauleiter" by Goebbels even though he never became one.
I might point out here, that at these bi-annual gauleiter conferences, mostly held at the Wolfsschanze, two other deputy gauleiters were also invited as support for their gauleiters -- namely Artur Görlitzer, and Schlessmann -- although their superiors (Goebbels and Terboven) were still in office -- they were the ones actually handling the day to day operations of the gau -- hence they were invited to attend the conferences.
Mark Costa
Mark,
Very interesting info and much appreciated!!! From your info am I correct at assuming that Wladimir von Pawlowski never served as the Gauleiter of Karnten (Official or Unofficial) or did he?
Pitino
