Alfred Eduard Frauenfeld (18 May 1898 – 10 May 1977) was an
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
n
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
leader. An engineer by occupation, he was associated with the pro-
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
wing of Austrian Nazism.
Activism in Austria
Frauenfeld was the son of a privy councillor and during the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
he served on the
Italian front as an Officer Candidate in the rank of a sergeant with the pay grade of a lance corporal with the k.u.k. Fliegerkompanie Nr. 48.
Philip Rees
Philip Rees (born 1941) is a British writer and librarian formerly in charge of acquisitions at the J. B. Morrell Library, University of York. He has written books on fascism and the extreme right.
Works
*''Fascism in Britain'' (Harvester Pres ...
, ''Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890
The ''Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890'' is a reference book by Philip Rees, on leading people in the various far right movements since 1890.
It contains entries for what the author regards as "the 500 major figures on the r ...
'', Simon & Schuster, 1990, p. 136 Working variously as a mason and a bank clerk, Frauenfeld was initially a member of the
Christian Social Party.
However Frauenfeld first came to prominence in the politics of Vienna, initially in
Hermann Hiltl
Hermann Hiltl, also Hermann Ritter von Hiltl (16 June 1872 – 15 August 1930) was an Austrian army officer who became leader of his own right wing militia, the ''Frontkämpfervereinigung'' (Front Fighters' Union), after the First World War. He em ...
's movement, before becoming a highly influential figure amongst the city's Nazis during the late 1920s. He seems to have joined the Austrian Nazi Party in August 1929 and very quickly took on the role of ''
Bezirksleiter
''Bezirksleiter'' (District Leader) was a Nazi Party title which was used in the early years of the Party's existence, beginning around 1926.
History
The position of ''Bezirksleiter'' was originally established around 1926 as the next higher orga ...
'' (District Leader) for the
Wieden
Wieden (; Central Bavarian: ''Wiedn'') is the 4th municipal district of Vienna, Austria (german: 4. Bezirk). It is near the centre of Vienna and was established as a district in 1850, but its borders were changed later. Wieden is a small region ...
District of Vienna.
He was confirmed by
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
as Nazi ''
Gauleiter
A ''Gauleiter'' () was a regional leader of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) who served as the head of a ''Administrative divisions of Nazi Germany, Gau'' or ''Reichsgau''. ''Gauleiter'' was the third-highest Ranks and insignia of the Nazi Party, rank in ...
'' of all Vienna in 1930.
[F. Parkinson, ''Conquering the past: Austrian Nazism yesterday & today'', 1989, p. 38] In this role he became hugely active, organising over 1000
propaganda
Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...
meetings in three years and founding a party newspaper ''Der Kampfruf'' with his own money in 1930, before ultimately running four Nazi dailies and four weeklies.
Under his command the Nazis became an important force in Vienna, winning almost ten times as many votes in the 1932 elections as they did in 1930.
From a few hundred members when he took over, Frauenfeld had expanded the Viennese party to 40,000 members by 1934.
[Rees, ''Biographical Dictionary'', p. 137] Frauenfeld's success saw him considered for the post of leader of the Austrian Nazi Party in 1931, although ultimately
Theodor Habicht
Theodor Habicht (4 April 1898 – 31 January 1944) was a leading political figure in Nazi Germany. He played a leading role in the Austrian Nazi Party. During World War II, he was involved in the administration of Nazi-occupied Norway until his dis ...
was chosen for the role by
Gregor Strasser
Gregor Strasser (also german: Straßer, see ß; 31 May 1892 – 30 June 1934) was an early prominent German Nazi official and politician who was murdered during the Night of the Long Knives in 1934. Born in 1892 in Bavaria, Strasser served i ...
on Hitler's advice.
Despite his success as an organiser Frauenfeld also had a reputation for a domineering and impolite temperament, something which ensured a frosty relationship with other leading Austrian Nazis
Josef Leopold
Josef Leopold (18 February 1889 – 24 June 1941) was a leading member of the Nazi Party in Austria. He was the ''Landesleiter'' of the party from 1935 to 1938 and the head of the Sturmabteilung in Austria. He belonged to the pro-independence tend ...
and
Alfred Proksch
Alfred Proksch (December 11, 1908 – January 3, 2011) was an Austrian Olympic athlete and graphic designer. The son of one of the co-founders of the Wiener Sport-Club, Proksch took an active interest in both athletics and g ...
.
Frauenfeld became associated with the terrorist activities of the Nazis within Austria and in June 1933 he was held at Wöllersdorf internment camp. He was also closely involved with Habicht in the abortive
putsch of 1934.
Engelbert Dollfuss
Engelbert Dollfuß (alternatively: ''Dolfuss'', ; 4 October 1892 – 25 July 1934) was an Austrian clerical fascist politician who served as Chancellor of Austria between 1932 and 1934. Having served as Minister for Forests and Agriculture, he a ...
had actually offered Frauenfeld a cabinet post in May 1934 in an attempt to avoid rebellion but he refused the offer and went to Germany to become involved in the plot.
He would remain in Germany after the plot failed and in 1936 was appointed to the
Reichstag as member for Düsseldorf East.
Under the Nazis
Following the
Anschluss
The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938.
The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germany ...
, of which Frauenfeld had long been an advocate, the popular local was a leading choice for the role of Gauleiter of Vienna. However, in what proved to be a fraught selection process Frauenfeld lost out to
Odilo Globocnik
Odilo Lothar Ludwig Globocnik (21 April 1904 – 31 May 1945) was an Austrian Nazi and a perpetrator of the Holocaust. He was an official of the Nazi Party and later a high-ranking leader of the SS. Globocnik had a leading role in Operation Re ...
, an old rival from
Carinthia
Carinthia (german: Kärnten ; sl, Koroška ) is the southernmost States of Austria, Austrian state, in the Eastern Alps, and is noted for its mountains and lakes. The main language is German language, German. Its regional dialects belong to t ...
. He was not sidelined completely however and found a number of positions within the Nazi administration. He was something of a patron of the arts and enjoyed a close relationship with the conductor
Clemens Krauss
Clemens Heinrich Krauss (31 March 189316 May 1954) was an Austrian conductor and opera impresario, particularly associated with the music of Richard Strauss, Johann Strauss and Richard Wagner.
Krauss was born in Vienna to Clementine Krauss, ...
and had also been an actor
and so within the
Reich Chamber of Culture
The Reich Chamber of Culture (''Reichskulturkammer'') was a government agency in Nazi Germany. It was established by law on 22 September 1933 in the course of the ''Gleichschaltung'' process at the instigation of Reich Minister Joseph Goebbels a ...
Frauenfeld served as managing director of the Theatre Chamber.
Later he served under
Erich Koch
Erich Koch (19 June 1896 – 12 November 1986) 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 (''Chef der Zivilverwaltung'') of Bezirk ...
as the General Commissar for
Crimea
Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...
and in this role Prof Dietrich Orlow grouped him along with the Commissar for
Belarus
Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...
Wilhelm Kube
Wilhelm Kube (13 November 1887 – 22 September 1943) was a Nazi official and German politician. He was an important figure in the German Christian movement during the early years of Nazi rule. During the war he became a senior official in the o ...
as being a "rehab" - that is to say Nazis who had fallen from grace but were able to make a comeback in the eastern administration. Frauenfeld did not share the ruthlessness of Koch and the Austrian's unwillingness to follow a policy of brutality towards the local population led to a series of public spats between the two men.
Whilst his time in charge saw a surprisingly high level of co-operation between the occupation government and the local administration, it has been argued that this was more the work of
Erich von Manstein
Fritz Erich Georg Eduard von Manstein (born Fritz Erich Georg Eduard von Lewinski; 24 November 1887 – 9 June 1973) was a German Field Marshal of the ''Wehrmacht'' during the Second World War, who was subsequently convicted of war crimes and ...
and that Frauenfeld instead spent most of his time in the Crimea trying to prove the
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
origins of local culture. He had also hoped to transfer the
South Tyrol
it, Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano – Alto Adige lld, Provinzia Autonoma de Balsan/Bulsan – Südtirol
, settlement_type = Autonomous province
, image_skyline =
, image_alt ...
ean population to the region in order to unite them with their kin as a common Nazi belief suggested that the German inhabitants of
South Tyrol
it, Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano – Alto Adige lld, Provinzia Autonoma de Balsan/Bulsan – Südtirol
, settlement_type = Autonomous province
, image_skyline =
, image_alt ...
were descendants of Goths. Frauenfeld further wished to settle the
Volga Germans
The Volga Germans (german: Wolgadeutsche, ), russian: поволжские немцы, povolzhskiye nemtsy) are ethnic Germans who settled and historically lived along the Volga River in the region of southeastern European Russia around Saratov ...
and the
Russian Germans of North America to the peninsula. Frauenfeld's role had originally been intended for his fellow Austrian
Josef Leopold
Josef Leopold (18 February 1889 – 24 June 1941) was a leading member of the Nazi Party in Austria. He was the ''Landesleiter'' of the party from 1935 to 1938 and the head of the Sturmabteilung in Austria. He belonged to the pro-independence tend ...
although his death left the position open. He re-emerged in Vienna in 1945 as an official spokesman for the
Gau.
Post-war activity
Frauenfeld, who finished the war in Germany, was sentenced in absentia to 15 years imprisonment by a Vienna court in 1947. According to a German secret service report on 22 July 1949 Frauenfeld joined a secret "Bruderschaft" of crypto-
neo Nazis
Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and racial supremacy (often white supremacy), attack r ...
in
Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
, timezone1 = Central (CET)
, utc_offset1 = +1
, timezone1_DST = Central (CEST)
, utc_offset1_DST = +2
, postal ...
where he was manager of a building firm. He also was close to
Gustav Adolf Scheel
Gustav Adolf Scheel (22 November 1907 – 25 March 1979) was a German physician and Nazi Party official. He served as a "multifunctionary" in Nazi Germany, including posts as the Reich Student Leader leading both the National Socialist German Stu ...
who was active in similar secret societies.
[Ernst Klee, ''Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945''. 2. Auflage, Frankfurt a.M. 2007, p. 162] He was arrested in February 1953 for his plotting against the government although a lack of evidence saw the charges dismissed.
He lived out his days in Hamburg, dying in 1977.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Frauenfeld, Alfred
1898 births
1977 deaths
Male actors from Vienna
Christian Social Party (Austria) politicians
Gauleiters
Members of the Reichstag of Nazi Germany
Militant League for German Culture members
Austrian male stage actors
Reichskommissariat Ukraine
Austro-Hungarian Air Service personnel
Austro-Hungarian military personnel of World War I
Austrian Nazis convicted of war crimes
Nazis convicted in absentia