Otto Steinhäusl (10 March 1879 – 20 June 1940) was an

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

n-born SS-''

Oberführer __NOTOC__ ''Oberführer'' (short: ''Oberf'', , ) was an early paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) dating back to 1921. An ''Oberführer'' was typically an NSDAP member in charge of a group of paramilitary units in a particular geograph ...

'', Polizeipräsident (police president) of Vienna, and President of

Interpol The International Criminal Police Organization – INTERPOL (abbreviated as ICPO–INTERPOL), commonly known as Interpol ( , ; stylized in allcaps), is an international organization that facilitates worldwide police cooperation and crime cont ...

(1938–1940).

Early career

In 1902/03 he served in the 17th Infantry Regiment as a one-year volunteer. He received his doctorate in law in 1905. In 1906/07 he completed his judicial year, after which he was a conceptual trainee at the Vienna Police Department. In 1911 he was transferred to Moravian-Ostrava and built up the security service there. For his contribution to the unmasking of Colonel Redl, he received the Golden Cross of Merit. He returned to Vienna in 1913 and was promoted to police commissioner in 1915. During the First World War, he worked in the Records Office of the Austro-Hungarian Counterintelligence Service. In 1919 he was promoted to police superintendent and in 1921 to police councilor. Steinhäusl served as Vienna's head of police and Polizeipräsident starting in the early 1930s. It is also believed to be the time which he joined the underground Austrian SS.

Otto Strasser Otto Johann Maximilian Strasser (also , see ß; 10 September 1897 – 27 August 1974) was a German politician and an early member of the Nazi Party. Otto Strasser, together with his brother Gregor Strasser, was a leading member of the party's ...

alleged that Steinhäusl was a secret

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

agent, and that in July 1933 there was an operation orchestrated by Steinhäusl to either kidnap Strasser, and smuggle him across the German frontier, or imprison him. However, the attempt met with failure.Douglas Reed, ''Nemesis? The Story of Otto Strasser,'' ''1940'', Page 71 In the aftermath of the assassination of Austrian

Chancellor Chancellor () is a title of various official positions in the governments of many countries. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the (lattice work screens) of a basilica (court hall), which separa ...

Engelbert Dollfuss Engelbert Dollfuss (alternatively Dollfuß; 4 October 1892 – 25 July 1934) was an Austrian politician and dictator who served as chancellor of Federal State of Austria, Austria between 1932 and 1934. Having served as Minister for Forests and ...

on 25 July 1934, Steinhäusl was found to be one of the conspirators and arrested. In December 1935, he was sentenced to 7 years in prison by a military court for high treason. Steinhäusl was released from prison in July 1936, due to the Juliabkommen.

Anschluss and reinstatement

On the morning of 12 March 1938, the 8th Army of the German

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the German Army (1935–1945), ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmac ...

crossed the German-Austrian border. They did not face resistance by the Austrian Army—on the contrary, the German troops were greeted by cheering Austrians with Hitler salutes, Nazi flags and flowers. Due to this, the Nazi invasion is also called the ''Blumenkrieg'' (war of flowers). By noon on the same day, ''

Reichsführer-SS (, ) was a special title and rank that existed between the years of 1925 and 1945 for the commander of the (SS). ''Reichsführer-SS'' was a title from 1925 to 1933, and from 1934 to 1945 it was the highest Uniforms and insignia of the Schut ...

Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and military leader who was the 4th of the (Protection Squadron; SS), a leading member of the Nazi Party, and one of the most powerful p ...

removed the current President of

, Dr. Michael Skubl, who would later be replaced by Steinhäusl, who had just been released from prison. Steinhäusl was reinstated as Polizeipräsident of Vienna, and promoted to SS-''

Standartenführer __NOTOC__ ''Standartenführer'' (short: ''Staf'', , ) was a Nazi Party (NSDAP) paramilitary rank that was used in several NSDAP organizations, such as the SA, SS, NSKK and the NSFK. First founded as a title in 1925, in 1928 it became one of ...

'' on the day of the

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, ), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a "German Question, Greater Germany") arose after t ...

Polizeipräsident of Vienna and President of Interpol

As Polizeipräsident of Vienna, Steinhäusl conspired with two higher leaders of the Austrian SS, Fridolin Glass and Josef Fitzthum, to retain the existing force structure of the Austrian police. Hoping to preempt a massive reorganization that might place their own careers in jeopardy, they persuaded the chief of ''

Ordnungspolizei The ''Ordnungspolizei'' (''Orpo'', , meaning "Order Police") were the uniformed police force in Nazi Germany from 1936 to 1945. The Orpo was absorbed into the Nazi monopoly of power after regional police jurisdiction was removed in favour of t ...

'',

Kurt Daluege Kurt Max Franz Daluege (15 September 1897 – 24 October 1946) was a German ''SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer'' and ''Generaloberst'' of the police, the highest ranking police officer, who served as chief of ''Ordnungspolizei'' (Order Police) of N ...

, to refrain from a purge, claiming that most of the detectives, policemen, and even neighborhood patrolmen had been illegal

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

activists before the Anschluss. Daluege was sceptical but agreed to wait until evidence could be organized and scrutinized. The response was the concoction of fraudulent documents that included backdated membership cards, forged dossiers, fabricated reports, and a host of other laundered or counterfeit items. By September 1938 nearly 1,000 policemen were officially confirmed to have been activists, of whom 700 were also admitted into the SS.Evan Burr Bukey, ''Hitler's Austria, Popular Sentiment in the Nazi Era, 1938-1945'', The University of North Carolina Press, ''2000'', p. 59 As sociologist Mathieu Deflem writes, "Steinhäusl became the new International Criminal Police Commission President in April 1938. Not only was Steinhäusl’s loyalty to Germany secure, German leaders also reckoned he would be but an interim figure, as he was known to suffer from

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

. The first meeting under Steinhäusl’s Presidency, in Bucharest in 1938, produced only one unanimous decision: that the next meeting was to be held in Berlin. A preliminary program for the Berlin meeting was drafted, a copy has survived in the FBI files on Interpol, but, as noted, the meeting was canceled."Deflem, Mathieu. 2002
"The Logic of Nazification: The Case of the International Criminal Police Commission ('Interpol')."
''International Journal of Comparative Sociology'' 43(1):21-44.

Death and aftermath

Steinhäusl, a long-time sufferer of tuberculosis, died on 20 June 1940 in Vienna. He was 61 years old.

Secretary General of Interpol Secretary General of Interpol is the chief administrative officer and the highest official of the Interpol. It conducts administrative tasks at the General Secretariat and is responsible for the implementation of the decisions made by the Gener ...

, Oskar Dressler sent a report to all ICPC members which specified that he and other police, including Nazi officials Arthur Nebe and others, had decided “to request the Chief of the German Security Police” to accept the Presidency of the ICPC. Reportedly, twenty-seven police officials representing 15 states consented to the suggestion. Because this was less than two-thirds of the total ICPC membership, the countries that could not be addressed were not counted and those that had abstained were considered as not voting against the motion, so that, the Nazi controlled ICPC leadership reasoned, the necessary majority was reached. In a circular letter of 24 August 1940,

Reinhard Heydrich Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich ( , ; 7 March 1904 – 4 June 1942) was a German high-ranking SS and police official during the Nazi era and a principal architect of the Holocaust. He held the rank of SS-. Many historians regard Heydrich ...

declared that he had been informed that his candidacy as ICPC President had "passed unanimously." Heydrich continued that he would "lead the Commission into a new and successful future" and that the ICPC headquarters would “from now on be located in Berlin”.

Summary of SS career

Dates of rank

* SS#292773 * SS-''

'': 12 March 1938 * SS-''

'': 25 July 1938

Notable decorations

* Anschluss Medal (1938)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Steinhausl, Otto 1879 births 1940 deaths 20th-century Austrian lawyers Austrian Nazis Austrian police officers convicted of crimes Austrian prisoners and detainees Civilians who were court-martialed Collaborators who participated in the July Putsch German Bohemian people German police chiefs Interpol officials Lawyers in the Nazi Party Nazis convicted of crimes People convicted by military courts People convicted of treason against Austria People from České Budějovice Police officers convicted of treason SS-Oberführer Tuberculosis deaths in Germany