District of Galicia

Distrikt Galizien

District of General Governorate

1941–1944

The District of Galicia (green), from 1941–1944

Capital

Lemberg

Area

•

51,200 km² (19,800 sq mi)

Population

•

4,400,000

Historical era

World War II

• Established

1941

• Disestablished

1944

Preceded by

	Lviv Oblast
	Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast
	Ternopil Oblast
	General Government

Today part of

Ukraine

The District of Galicia (German: Distrikt Galizien, Polish: Dystrykt Galicja, Ukrainian: Дистрикт Галичина) was a World War II administrative unit of the General Government created by Nazi Germany on 1 August 1941 after the start of Operation Barbarossa, based loosely within the borders of the ancient Principality of Galicia and the more recent Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. Initially, during the invasion of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union, the territory temporarily fell under Soviet occupation in 1939 as part of Soviet Ukraine.

Adolf Hitler formed a capital in Lemberg (Lviv) (Document No. 1997-PS of 17 July 1941), and the district existed from 1941 until 1944. It ceased to exist after the Soviet counter-offensive.^[1]^[2]

History

The District of Galicia comprised mainly the pre-war Lwów Voivodeship of the Second Polish Republic (today part of western Ukraine). The territory was taken over by Nazi Germany in 1941 after the attack on the USSR and incorporated into the General Government, governed by Gauleiter Hans Frank since the invasion of 1939. The region was taken over again by the Soviet Union in 1944.

The district area was managed by Frank's brother-in-law Karl Lasch (de, pl) from 1 August 1941 to 6 January 1942, and by SS Brigadeführer Dr. Otto Wächter from 6 January 1942 to September 1943. Wächter utilised the district capital Lemberg (pl: Lwów, ukr: Lviv) as a recruitment base for the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Galicia (1st Ukrainian). In the course of the Holocaust in occupied Poland starting from the year of the invasion, the largest Jewish extermination ghettos were created in Lwów (Lemberg) and in Stanisławów (Stanislau).^[3]

Governors

No.	Portrait	Governor	Took office	Left office	Time in office
1		Lasch, KarlKarl Lasch [de] (1904–1942)	1 August 1941	6 January 1942	5 months
2		Wächter, OttoOtto Wächter (1901–1949)	22 January 1942	August 1944	2 years, 6 months

References

^ Arne Bewersdorf. "Hans-Adolf Asbach. Eine Nachkriegskarriere" (PDF). Band 19 Essay 5 (in German). Demokratische Geschichte. pp. 1–42. Retrieved June 26, 2013.
^ Paczkowski, Andrzej (2003). The Spring Will Be Ours: Poland and the Poles from Occupation to Freedom. Translated by Jane Cave. Penn State Press. pp. 54–. ISBN 0-271-02308-2.
^ Dieter Pohl. Hans Krueger and the Murder of the Jews in the Stanislawow Region (Galicia) (PDF file from Yad Vashem.org). pp. 12/13, 17/18, 21. It is impossible to determine what Krueger's exact responsibility was in connection with "Bloody Sunday" [massacre of 12 October 1941 in Stanisławów]. It is clear that a massacre of such proportions under German civil administration was virtually unprecedented.