Josef Bühler
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Dr. Josef Bühler (February 16, 1904 – July 5, 1948) was state secretary for the Nazi-controlled General Government in Kraków during World War II.
Bühler was born in Bad Waldsee. He joined the Nazi Party in 1922. He was one of the members of the attempted Beer Hall Putsch in Munich on November 9, 1923.[dubious ] Bühler worked as a lawyer in partnership with Dr. Hans Frank, who was Adolf Hitler's attorney. When the Nazis came to power, Bühler was appointed Deputy President of the Academy of German Law.
After the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany in September 1939, Frank was appointed Governor-General of the General Government of occupied Poland and Bühler accompanied him to Kraków to take up the post of State Secretary of the General Government. He was given the honorary rank of SS-Brigadeführer by SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler around this time.
Bühler attended the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942 as Frank's representative. During this conference - which discussed the imposition of the 'final solution of the Jewish Question in the German Sphere of Influence in Europe' - Bühler pressed the other conference attendees to 'solve the Jewish Question in the General Government as quickly as possible'.
After the war, Bühler was tried by the Poles for crimes against humanity, condemned to death, and executed in Kraków in 1948.
[edit] In popular media
Buhler played a major part in the alternate history novel Fatherland, written by Robert Harris. In Fatherland's alternate history, Nazi Germany defeated the Soviet Union during the Second World War. As a result of this, Buhler continued to serve in the General Government until 1951, when he was wounded by Polish resistance forces and was forced to retire.
Buhler's main role in Fatherland is that he was murdered by the SS during April 1964 in an attempt to cover all traces of the Final Solution, which Buhler helped to instigate. The discovery of Buhler's corpse in the Havel sparks the investigation by Xavier March that uncovers the conspiracy.
In the 2001 HBO film Conspiracy, which portrayed the Wannsee Conference, Buhler was played by the British actor Ben Daniels.
