reporting directly to Hitler. Uiberreither was appointed Reichstatthalter of Reichsgau Styria. On 14 April 1941 after the conquest of Yugoslavia, he was named the Chief of Civil Administration in the occupied area of Lower Styria (now part of Slovenia). This was an area of 6,050 square kilometers with a population of approximately 530,000. Uiberreither was given a mandate by Hitler to "Make this territory German again for me." Accordingly, Uiberreither oversaw a policy of ruthless Germanization. He convened a meeting on 6 May 1941 at Maribor to plan measures that resulted in the expulsion to Serbia of tens of thousands of Slovenes in three waves beginning in July 1941. The Slovene language was banned and place names were Germanized. These repressive actions led to increased partisan attacks upon German occupation authorities and their local collaborators. In addition, the Aktion T4 program of euthanasia involving mentally impaired individuals was operational within Styria and Lower Slovenia at this time. It is estimated that over 500 patients from various mental care facilities were gassed to death at the Hartheim Euthanasia Center near Linz. Also, 62 children and teenagers were killed at the Fendhof hospital in Graz. On 16 November 1942, Uiberreither was appointed the Reich Defense Commissioner for his Reichsgau. On 9 November 1943, he was promoted to SA-Obergruppenführer. In September 1944 he became the leader of the Volkssturm in Styria, a last-ditch Nazi Party militia set up towards the end of the Second World War and associated with the Nazi "Werwolf" organization. This consisted of conscripted males between the ages of 16 and 60 who were not already in the military. Uiberreither was also charged with construction of defensive positions against the anticipated assault by the Red Army, which involved the procurement of forced civilian labor. Postwar life In May 1945, after the Allies had overrun the Reich and Hitler was dead, Uiberreither was arrested in Murau by British authorities and later compelled to testify as a witness at the Nuremberg Trials.. He was held at the former Dachau concentration camp but he fled in 1947 when he learned of plans to hand him over to Yugoslavia for prosecution. There were unconfirmed reports that he escaped to Argentina, though this is disputed. It is known that he eventually lived with his family in Sindelfingen under an assumed name, Friedrich Schönharting. He died there in 1984, reportedly of Alzheimer's disease. References Sources External