Erich Koch was a Gauleiter of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in East Prussia from 1 October 1928 until 1945. Between 1941 and 1945 he was Chief of Civil Administration of Bezirk Bialystok. During this period, he was also the Reichskommissar in Reichskommissariat Ukraine from September 1941 until August 1944 and in Reichskommissariat Ostland from September 1944. After the Second World War, Koch stood trial in Poland and was convicted in 1959 of war crimes and sentenced to death. The sentence was later commuted to life in prison and Koch died of natural causes in his cell at the Barczewo prison on 12 November 1986.

Bialystok District was an administrative unit of Nazi Germany created during the World War II invasion of the Soviet Union. It was to the south-east of East Prussia, in present-day northeastern Poland as well as in smaller sections of adjacent present-day Belarus and Lithuania. It was sometimes also referred to by the designation South East Prussia along with the Regierungsbezirk Zichenau, although in contrast to the latter, it was not incorporated into, but merely attached to East Prussia.