The article presents an important document by Professor Hans Schleif (1902–1945), a German classical archaeologist, who was appointed a trustee for securing cultural goods of Wielkopolska in December 1939 and in fact a successor of Professor Józef Kostrzewski by the Nazi authorities. The institution hitherto termed Dział Przedhistoryczny Muzeum Wielkopolskiego (Department of Prehistory of the Museum of Wielkopolska) was renamed into Landesamt für Vorgeschichte Posen (National Office for Prehistory in Poznań), and since then it was supposed to fulfil the role of an archaeological and conservation institution (fig. 1). Schleif’s memorial (Archive of the Archaeological Museum in Poznań, Archiwum Naukowe Muzeum Archeologicznego, inv. MAP-A-dz-52/5) contains a project of a radical reorganisation of the archaeological centre in Poznań. Although it was never implemented (mainly because of the situation at the Eastern Front), its content should be published, at least for the reasons to follow: a) it presents an evaluation of the achievements of Polish archaeology (mainly in Poznań) between the world wars, b) it contains statements concerning plans and aims of the Nazi decision-makers towards Polish archaeological collections and institutions, c) it mentions internal relationships, conflicts and games between the Nazi officials in their struggle for power and influence, and thus gives us a chance to look into their mentality, which in addition throws light on the specific character of that dramatic period in the history of Poznań archaeology. The author of the memorial – Hans Philipp Oswald Schleif (born 1902 in Wiesbaden, died 1945 in Berlin) was a German architect and classical archaeologist, specialising in the architecture of the Ancient Greece. He was a member of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) and an SS-Standartenführer (i.e. colonel), as well as a high official of the German administration in occupied Wielkopolska (a trustee for securing cultural goods for Wartheland, 1939-1940). Schleif studied architecture in the Technical High School (TH – Technische Hochschule), first in Dresden, than in Munich and Berlin-Charlottenburg (1920–27); he graduated as an engineer at the latter (1927). Schleif was a member of several archaeological teams in Greece, Troy and the Sudan, led by the best classical archaeologists (fig. 2). In 1932 he became a correspondent-member of the DAI, at the same time obtaining a doctorate in engineering. His further professional career appeared to be very unstable and full of inconsistency; despite being a well-known and appreciated architectural archaeologist, a specialist in the ancient architecture already at the age of 31, he still did not have a full-time job and a regular income. Without a membership of the Nazi Party no-one in the then Germany was allowed to become a docent. In 1935 Schleif became a member of SS, with the rank of Untersturmführer (second lieutenant), and in 1937 of NSDAP. In September 1939 Schleif volunteered to Waffen-SS, and in December that year he was appointed by the Main Trustee Office for the East (Haupttreuhandstelle Ost) for the position of a trustee for Wartheland (Warthegau) in Poznań. He was expected ‘to protect German heritage’, which in practice meant mainly massive confiscation or destruction of Polish artworks and culture (figs. 3–4). In this action, Schleif appeared to be exceptionally brutal and unscrupulous (among others he caused the demolition of 25% of book collection of the Library of the Poznań Society of Friends of Arts and Sciences (PTPN), as well as numerous private collections from palaces and manor houses). His written order to burn monumental picture ‘Moses’ by Stanisław Rostworowski (1856–1888) in a manor house in Gębice, near Gostyń (31.VII.1940) provides a typical example of his activity. Meaningful is also his speech delivered in public during the conference on liquidation of the Library of the PTPN on 29th of August 1940: ‘I have the right either to burn, demolish and throw it into a paper bank, or to present it to anyone I wish to’ (Baumgart 1946, 931). The other Schleif’s duty was to establish a new system of organisation of conservation and archaeological museology within eastern lands, newly-occupied by the Reich. In his concept, presented in the discussed memorial, the main role was given to Poznań, which was supposed to become a centre of the whole territory of the ‘German East’ between Kaliningrad (Królewiec) and Vienna (figures 5-6). Schleif’s barbarian actions in Wielkopolska were described and severely judged by Józef Kostrzewski, who, following his return from the war exile to Poznań in March 1945, found extensive documentation on the activities of the Main Trustee Office (Kostrzewski 1945; Figure 7). On 25th April 1945, shortly before the fall of the 3rd Reich, Schleif shot his wife Lora and his twin-sons (eighteen months old): Alexander and Konstantin, and then committed suicide in his flat in Berlin. In 1955 he was rehabilitated post-mortem by one of the courts in Bayern as an ‘official of DA’. He left a huge scientific output and his archaeological excavations are regarded to have complied with the then highest methodological standards. Schleif’s story may be an example of an eminent scientist, deprived by the totalitarian system. In the last few months, life wrote a surprising punch line to the dark life of Hans Schleif. His grandson, theatre actor, Matthias Neukirch, the member of the best theatre in Germany – Deutsches Theater Berlin, having being quite recently informed of his grandfather’s war activities, prepared a monodrama ‘Hans Schleif. In search of traces’, based on the results of a widespread archive query, calling his grandfather to stand in front of a specific theatrical tribunal (figures 8–10). The play, on stage in Berlin since the end of 2011 (premiere on 13th October 2011), has been hugely popular. Above, I quote the whole Hans Schleif’s memorial, both in German (with original spelling and punctuation) and in the Polish translation.