Schutzstaffel
The ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS; also stylized as ''ᛋᛋ'' with Armanen runes; ; "Protection Squadron") was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe d ...
'' (SS) membership from
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 ...
. The term and title was used unofficially. They were never officially recognized as a separate branch of the SS. Austrian SS members were seen as regular personnel and they served in every branch of the SS.
History
The term "Austrian SS" is often used to describe that portion of the SS membership from
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 ...
, but it was never a recognized branch of the SS. In contrast to SS members from other countries, who were grouped into either the Germanic-SS or the Foreign Legions of the Waffen-SS, Austrian SS members were regular SS personnel. It was technically under the command of the SS in Germany, but often acted independently concerning Austrian affairs. The Austrian SS was founded in 1930 and, by 1934, was acting as a covert force to bring about 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 ...
'' with Germany, which occurred in March 1938. Early Austrian SS leaders were
Ernst Kaltenbrunner
Ernst Kaltenbrunner (4 October 190316 October 1946) was a high-ranking Austrian SS official during the Nazi era and a major perpetrator of the Holocaust. After the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in 1942, and a brief period under Heinrich ...
and
Arthur Seyss-Inquart
Arthur Seyss-Inquart (German: Seyß-Inquart, ; 22 July 1892 16 October 1946) was an Austrian Austrian National Socialism, Nazi politician who served as Chancellor of Austria in 1938 for two days before the ''Anschluss''. His positions in Nazi Ge ...
.
Austrian SS men were organized in the same manner as the ''
Allgemeine-SS
The ''Allgemeine SS'' (; "General SS") was a major branch of the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) paramilitary forces of Nazi Germany; it was managed by the SS Main Office (''SS-Hauptamt''). The ''Allgemeine SS'' was officially established in the autum ...
'', but operated as an underground organization, in particular after 1936 when the Austrian government declared the SS an illegal organization. Kaltenbrunner, for example, repeatedly made trips to
Bavaria
Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...
to consult with Himmler and Heydrich. Hiding on a train and on a ship that traveled to
Passau
Passau (; bar, label=Central Bavarian, Båssa) is a city in Lower Bavaria, Germany, also known as the Dreiflüssestadt ("City of Three Rivers") as the river Danube is joined by the Inn from the south and the Ilz from the north.
Passau's popu ...
, he would return with money and orders for Austrian comrades. Kaltenbrunner was arrested for a second time in 1937, by Austrian authorities on charges of being head of the illegal Nazi Party organisation in
Upper Austria
Upper Austria (german: Oberösterreich ; bar, Obaöstareich) is one of the nine states or of Austria. Its capital is Linz. Upper Austria borders Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as the other Austrian states of Lower Austria, Styria, a ...
. He was released in September. One of the largest formations of the Austrian SS was the 11th SS-Standarte operating out of
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
.
After 1938, when Austria was annexed by Germany, the Austrian SS was folded into '' SS-Oberabschnitt Donau'' with the 3rd regiment of the ''SS-Verfugungstruppe'', ''Der Führer,'' and the fourth ''Totenkopf'' regiment, ''Ostmark'', recruited in Austria shortly thereafter.
Mauthausen
Mauthausen was a Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town
A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regu ...
was the first concentration camp opened in Austria following the ''Anschluss''. Starting with a single camp at Mauthausen, the complex expanded over time and by the summer of 1940 Mauthausen had become one of the largest
labour camp
A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (especi ...
complexes in the German-controlled part of Europe, with four main subcamps at Mauthausen and nearby Gusen, and nearly 100 other subcamps located throughout Austria and southern Germany, directed from a central office at Mauthausen.
In Vienna, the Hotel Metropole was transformed into Gestapo headquarters in April 1938. With a staff of 900 (80 per cent of whom were recruited from the Austrian police), it was the largest Gestapo office outside of Berlin. An estimated 50,000 people were interrogated or tortured there. Thereafter, the people would be deported to concentration camps throughout the German Reich. The Gestapo in Vienna was headed by
Franz Josef Huber
Franz Josef Huber (22 January 1902 – 30 January 1975) was an SS functionary who was a police and security service official in both the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany. Huber joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and worked closely with Gestapo chief ...
, who also served as chief of the
Central Agency for Jewish Emigration in Vienna
The Central Agency for Jewish Emigration in Vienna () was a ''Sicherheitsdienst'' (SD-Security Service) agency established in August 1938 to accelerate the forced emigration of the Austrian Jews and (starting in October 1939) to organize and carr ...
Alois Brunner
Alois Brunner (8 April 1912 – December 2001) was an Austrian (SS) SS-Hauptsturmführer who played a significant role in the implementation of the Holocaust through rounding up and deporting Jews in occupied Austria, Greece, Macedonia, France, ...
, Huber was still responsible for the mass deportation of Austrian Jews.
Austrian SS members served in every branch of the SS, including
Nazi concentration camps
From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as concen ...
, ''
Einsatzgruppen
(, ; also ' task forces') were (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass murder, primarily by shooting, during World War II (1939–1945) in German-occupied Europe. The had an integral role in the im ...
'', and the Security Services. Political scientist David Art of
Tufts University
Tufts University is a private research university on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learning. ...
notes that Austrians comprised 8 per cent of the Third Reich's population and 13 percent of the SS; he states that 40 per cent of the staff and 75 per cent of commanders at death camps were Austrian. Besides Eichmann, who was one of the major organisers of
the Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
,
Amon Göth
Amon Leopold Göth (; alternative spelling ''Goeth''; 11 December 1908 – 13 September 1946) was an Austrian SS functionary and war criminal. He served as the commandant of the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp in Płaszów in German ...
was another infamous Austrian-SS member. He became the commandant of the
Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp
, known for =
, location =
, coordinates =
, built by =
, operated by = Nazi Germany
, commandant = Amon Göth (until September 1944)Arnold Büscher (September 1944 – January 1945)
...
in
Płaszów
Płaszów is a suburb of Kraków, Poland, now part of Podgórze district. Formerly a separate village, it became a part of the Greater Kraków in 1911 under the Austrian Partition of Poland as the 21st cadastral district of the city. During World ...
(who was portrayed in the film ''
Schindler's List
''Schindler's List'' is a 1993 American epic historical drama film directed and produced by Steven Spielberg and written by Steven Zaillian. It is based on the 1982 novel ''Schindler's Ark'' by Australian novelist Thomas Keneally. The film fo ...
'' by
Ralph Fiennes
Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes ( ; born 22 December 1962) is an English actor, film producer, and director. A Shakespeare interpreter, he excelled onstage at the Royal National Theatre before having further success at the Royal Shak ...
).
See also
*
August Eigruber
August Eigruber (16 April 1907 – 28 May 1947) was an Austrian-born Nazi Gauleiter and ''Reichsstatthalter'' of Reichsgau Oberdonau (Upper Danube) and Landeshauptmann of Upper Austria. He was convicted of war crimes at Mauthausen-Gusen conce ...
*
August Meyszner
August Edler von Meyszner (3 August 1886 – 24 January 1947) was an Austrian Gendarmerie officer, right-wing politician, and senior ''Ordnungspolizei'' (order police) officer who held the post of Higher SS and Police Leader in the Germ ...
*
Wilhelm Höttl Wilhelm Höttl or Hoettl (19 March 1915 – 27 June 1999) was an Austrian Nazi Party member, and SS member who rose to the rank of SS-''Sturmbannführer''. He served in the ''Sicherheitsdienst'' (Security Service; SD), and by 1944 was acting head o ...
*
Otto Skorzeny
Otto Johann Anton Skorzeny (12 June 1908 – 5 July 1975) was an Austrian-born German SS-''Obersturmbannführer'' (lieutenant colonel) in the Waffen-SS during World War II. During the war, he was involved in a number of operations, including th ...
References
Citations
Bibliography
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* {{cite book , last = Weale , first = Adrian , author-link = Adrian Weale , title = Army of Evil: A History of the SS , year = 2012 , publisher = NAL Caliber (Penguin Group) , location = New York; Toronto , isbn = 978-0-451-23791-0
Nazi SSAustria in World War II