59: A Free-for-All in the East
The combined leadership of the state and the party in the incorporated area of occupied Poland provided far greater influence for the party than was the case in the "Old Reich," and Hitler's attitude towards policy in the incorporated territories was typical. The Führer placed great value on giving his Gauleiter the "necessary freedom of action" to carry out their difficult tasks. He stressed "that he only demanded a report from the Gauleiter after ten years that their area was German, that is purely German. He would not ask about the methods they had used to make the area German, and it was immaterial to him if sometime in the future is were established that the methods to win this territory were not pretty or open to legal objection." The inevitable consequence of this broad mandate - though it was alleged that it ran counter to Hitler's intention - was competition between Arthur Greiser and his arch-rival Albert Forster to be the first to announ...