Editing Arthur Greiser (section)

===Holocaust===
SS-''Obergruppenführer'' Greiser actively participated in the [[Holocaust]].{{sfn|Epstein|2012|pages=231–232}} Early in 1940, Greiser is on record challenging [[Hermann Göring]] over efforts to delay the expulsion of Łódź Jews to Poland. On 18 September 1941, ''Reichsführer-SS'' Himmler informed Greiser that he intended to transfer 60,000 [[Czechs|Czech]] and German Jews to the [[Łódź Ghetto]] until spring 1942, when they would be "resettled". The first transport arrived a few weeks later, and Greiser sought and received permission from Himmler to kill 100,000 Jews in his area.{{sfn|Kershaw|2000|p=484}} He then instructed [[HSSPF]] [[Wilhelm Koppe]] to manage the overcrowding. Koppe and SS-''[[Sturmbannführer]]'' [[Herbert Lange]] proceeded to manage the problem by experimenting at a country estate at [[Chełmno nad Nerem]] with [[gas vans]], establishing the first extermination unit which ultimately carried out the mass murder of approximately 150,000 Jews between late 1941 and April 1942. Furthermore, on 6 October 1943 Greiser hosted a national assembly of senior SS officers in [[Poznań|Posen]] at which Himmler candidly spoke of the mass executions of civilians (the infamous [[Posen Speech]]). Greiser's [[mass murder]] operations were coordinated by SS-''[[Oberführer]]'' [[Herbert Mehlhorn]].<ref name="GrunerOsterloh2015">{{cite book|author1=Wolf Gruner|author2=Jorg Osterloh|title=The Greater German Reich and the Jews: Nazi Persecution Policies in the Annexed Territories 1935–1945|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5R6jBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA205|date=15 January 2015|publisher=Berghahn Books|isbn=978-1-78238-444-1|page=205|quote=Wartheland's Security Police and SS-Oberführer Herbert Mehlhorn, who was ordered by Greiser to coordinate the mass murder operations, resorted to gas wagons, which had already ...}}</ref>

On 20 January 1945, Greiser ordered a general evacuation of Posen (having received a telegram from Bormann relaying Hitler's order to leave the city). Greiser left the city the same evening and reported to Himmler's personal train in [[Frankfurt (Oder)|Frankfurt an der Oder]]. There Greiser found that he had been tricked by Bormann. Hitler had announced that Posen must be held at all costs, and Greiser was now viewed as a deserter and coward, particularly by Goebbels, who in his diary on 2 March 1945 labeled Greiser "a real disgrace to the ([[Nazism|Nazi]]) Party", but his recommendations for punishment after the capture of Poznań were ignored.{{sfn|Kershaw|2000|p=759n24}}

He surrendered to the [[United States|Americans]] in Austria in 1945.