Wilhelm von Gayl

Wilhelm Moritz Egon Freiherr von Gayl ( born February 4, 1879 in Königsberg, † November 7, 1945 in Potsdam ) was a German jurist and politician ( DNVP ).

Life

After graduation Gayl holds a degree in law. From 1909 to 1932 he was director of the East Prussian Land Company. In 1901 he became a member of the Corps Saxonia Göttingen, 1906 Corp. loop carrier Borussia Bonn.

1916 to 1918, he served as head of the political department of the Chief in the East and was appointed Governor of the German Military Administration in Lithuania, based in Kaunas in 1918.

Gayl belonged to the Prussian State Council from 1921 to 1933, and was from 1921 to 1932 represented the province of East Prussia in the Imperial Parliament.

Gayl took in 1919 for East Prussia to the peace negotiations on the Treaty of Versailles and was part in the referendum in 1920 Reich Commissioner in the plebiscite area Olsztyn. From June 1 to December 3, 1932, he served as Minister of the Interior in the out by Chancellor Franz von Papen government. From 1925 to 1932 he headed the Society for the Promotion of internal colonization. In 1932 he became chairman of the Reich Committee for youth exercise. He then withdrew from active politics.

Political orientation

Wilhelm von Gayl was an anti-Semite and supporter of the "people's ground doctrine." He tightened as interior minister three months before the seizure of power by the National Socialists, the naturalization law to foreclose the German "living space" against foreign populations. Under this law, he wanted to make it Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe in particular impossible to disguise their " blood- moderate descent"; they had to submit a proof of Aryan descent.

As interior minister Gayl was also responsible for broadcasting, and in June 1932 in the broadcast "Hour of the Reich Government " a call to the radio -rubbing, which also anticipation of National Socialism, which is to look at the radio as an instrument of propaganda. He was alluding in particular from the Reichs- Rundfunk -Gesellschaft, the hinnahm these demands without resistance:

" The Reich Government sets it value immediately communicate their intentions and actions of the German people through the use of modern means of broadcasting. We feel obliged us to turn to the millions of German people who listen to the radio in all parts of our country. We will henceforth by radio talk directly to the German people, so it knows what it is, and because it has a right to hear us! " "

Works

• With Max Worgitzki, Adolf Eichler: History of voting in East Prussia. The battle for Warmia and Mazury. K. F. Koehler, Leipzig 1921.
• East Prussia under foreign flags - A memoir on the East Prussian plebiscite on 11 July 1920 Königsberg 1940.