Josef Grohé

Josef Grohé (6 November 1902 – 27 December 1987), was a German Nazi Party official. He was the Gauleiter of Cologne and Reichskommissariat of Belgium and Northern France.

Grohé was born in Gemünden im Hunsrück as the son of a shopkeeper. He finished secondary school in 1919 and worked as a clerk in the hardware industry.

Politics and official positions

Grohé was already active in anti-democratic and racist organizations as an adolescent. He joined the anti-Semitic Deutschvölkischer Schutz und Trutzbund and the Nazi Party in 1921. He was co-founder of the Nazi organization in Cologne in 1922 and founder of its newspaper, the Westdeutscher Beobachter. In 1931 he was appointed Gauleiter (regional party leader) of Cologne-Aachen, and in 1932 he was elected to both the Reichstag and the Prussian Staatsrat (State Council).

In July 1944, in addition to these posts, he was made the Reichskommissar of the newly created civilian administration in German-occupied Belgium and Northern France. From September 1944, however, the territory's liberation by the Allies begun. In 1945, he organized the Cologne Volkssturm and ordered the demolition of five large bridges over the Rhine.

He was arrested by the British occupation authorities in Cologne in 1945 and imprisoned until 1950.

Post-war

After the war, Grohé remained dedicated to the Nazi cause for the rest of his life and showed no remorse. In 1950, he was sentenced to a four and a half years imprisonment (time served) by a court in Bielefeld for being a part of the political leadership of the Nazi party. He had known of the Holocaust, but the court was not able to prove his involvement in atrocities. After being released from imprisonment, he continued his professional career as a sales representative for German toy manufacturers. He died on 27th of December 1987 in Brück, Cologne.