Albert Maria Forster (26 July 1902 – 28 February 1952) was a German Nazi Party politician, member of the SS and war criminal.

During the Second World War, under his administration as the Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter of Danzig-West Prussia (the other German-annexed section of occupied Poland aside from the Warthegau), the local non-German populations of Poles and Jews were classified as sub-human and subjected to extermination campaigns involving ethnic cleansing, mass murder, and in the case of some Poles with German ancestry, forceful Germanisation.

Forster was in attendance in Munich when the Nazi Party was refounded by Hitler on 27 February 1925, and he again became the Ortsgruppenleiter (Local Group Leader) in Fürth.

From February 1928, Forster was employed as a payment office official by the German National Association of Commercial Employees (Deutschnationaler Handlungsgehilfen-Verband, DHV), a nationalist and anti-Semitic trade union.

However, that year he advanced to Party Bezirksleiter (District Leader) for Middle Franconia, while also retaining his leadership in Fürth; he would continue to hold these positions through December 1929.

In January 1935, he was named chairman of the Danzig branch of the Nordische Gesellschaft (Nordic Society) charged with strengthening German-Nordic cultural and political cooperation.

[5] In 1939, following orders from Berlin, Forster led the agitation in Danzig to step up pressure for annexation by Nazi Germany and proclaimed that in future "Poland will be only a dream".

He was hateful of Jews whom he called "dirty and slippery race" and he expressed his desire to control parts of Poland after Poles would be expelled from them.

When these territories were annexed after the Invasion of Poland and they became Reichsgau Danzig – West Prussia, Forster's distrust of the local Nazi leaders led him to deny them political power.

At the same time, he was also named Reichsstatthalter (Reich Governor) of the new territory, thereby uniting under his control the highest party and governmental offices in his jurisdiction.

[11] Forster's goal was to make the area fully Germanised within ten years,[12] and he was directly responsible for extermination policy in the region.

[19][20] Between the 10th and 15th of September, Forster organised a meeting of top Nazi officials in his region and ordered the immediate removal of all "dangerous" Poles, all Jews, and all Polish clergy.

[24] Forster was one of those responsible for the mass murders in Piaśnica, where approximately 12,000 to 16,000 Poles, Jews, Czechs, Kashubians and even Germans were killed in the winter of 1939-1940.

[27] It is estimated that up to 30,000 Jews from Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany in Pomerania and attached to Danzig-West Prussia were murdered during the war.

[28] The terror policy instituted by Forster offered only two possibilities to the Polish population: extermination or Germanisation, genocide and forced assimilation.

[29] At the start of the war Forster planned ethnic cleansing from his Gau of all Poles originating from Congress Poland and all Jews by February 1940, but unforeseen problems with agriculture workers and the inadequate character of German settlers forced him to revise his policies.

[35] Arthur Greiser complained to Heinrich Himmler, Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germandom, that Forster's assimilation policy was against Nazi racial theory.

[34] Although far fewer Poles would be removed from Danzig-West Prussia than in the neighbouring Warthegau[37] it is estimated that by the end of the war, up to 60,000 people had been murdered in the region[38] and between 35,000 and 170,000 expelled.

While Greiser did all he could to accommodate them in his Reichsgau, Forster viewed them with hostility, claiming that his region needed young farmers while the refugees were old and urbanised.

It was only following a lengthy telephone consultation with the desperate Himmler that Forster allowed the passengers to disembark, on the understanding that their stay would be temporary, though most did not ultimately leave.