Local Gauleiters often held government positions as well as party ones and were in charge of, among other things, propaganda and surveillance and, from September 1944 onward, the Volkssturm and the defense of the Gau.

[4][2] On 10 November 1938, Florian played an active part in the Kristallnacht pogrom in Düsseldorf, leading SA and Hitler Youth in attacking the home of the Regierungspräsident Carl Christian Schmid, whose wife was Jewish.

The most severe attack occurred on June 12, 1943, when a firestorm was ignited through targeted bombing by the British Royal Air Force, largely destroying the historical city center, downtown, and other adjacent neighborhoods.

Speer tried to convince them to ignore Adolf Hitler’s Nero Decree mandating a scorched earth policy ahead of the Allied armies’ advance.

He read aloud a proclamation he intended to issue ordering the evacuation of the population of Düsseldorf and setting fire to all buildings, leaving the Allies a burned-out, deserted city.