Alois Maier-Kaibitsch

Alois Maier-Kaibitsch (born May 20, 1891 in Leoben , † November 26, 1958 ) was a Carinthian German national and later National Socialist functionary who played a major role in the anti-Slovene policies of the First Republic and after the annexation to the German Empire . In the Second Republic , he was sentenced to life imprisonment as a war criminal .

Youth and First World War

Alois Maier-Kaibitsch was born in Leoben as the son of a butcher and house owner. After primary school, he said he attended grammar school for five years. In 1912 he completed his training at the higher forestry school in Bruck an der Mur . Between 1912 and 1913 he served as a one-year volunteer with Infantry Regiment No. 7 in Klagenfurt . He then worked as a forest assistant in Leoben- Trofaiach . When the First World War broke out , he was called up to the rank of reserve sergeant-cadet aspirant in his regular regiment. In the course of the war he was promoted to first lieutenant .

Interwar period

After the end of the war, he and his company took part in the Carinthian defensive battle from 1918 to 1920. Among other things, he was involved in the military occupation of the Miessal valley together with Hans Steinacher . In the run-up to the Carinthian referendum in 1920, he was deputy managing director of the Carinthian Homeland Service, which he took over in 1921. In 1924, after the Social Democrats had left the homeland service, this was re-established as the Carinthian Heimatbund, also under the leadership of Maier-Kaibitsch. Maier-Kaibitsch's goal was the complete assimilation of the Carinthian Slovenes .

In the 1920s and 1930s Maier-Kaibitsch was responsible for German national Slovenian policy. He put a tight organizational network over the mixed-language area of ​​Carinthia and turned the Heimatbund into an instrument of repressive Germanization policy . He succeeded in integrating the Carinthian soil agency into the Heimatbund, on whose supervisory board he had sat since 1924. By 1933 alone, around 200 Slovenian farms with around 4500 hectares of land had been brought into "homeland-loyal German" hands through the land agency.

In 1935 he was assigned by the Carinthian Security Directorate to the Landbund around Ferdinand Kernmaier . Maier-Kaibitsch's accession to the NSDAP on January 1, 1934, which was only confirmed on May 1, 1938 (membership number 6.138.202), is certain. Maier-Kaibitsch was, on the one hand, a confidante of the NS Gauleitung, and on the other hand he was able to exert direct influence on the state government: Arnold Sucher , governor from 1936, appointed Maier-Kaibitsch to the advisory board of the state leadership of the Fatherland Front . Also from 1936 he was "national political advisor for the mixed-language area at the Gauleitung of the NSDAP Carinthia" and transformed the Heimatbund into a National Socialist organization. High-ranking party functionaries such as Odilo Globocnik and Friedrich Rainer praised him as a willing helper , as a valuable political advisor , as the most important secret employee and nationally valuable force .

time of the nationalsocialism

On March 13, 1938, Maier-Kaibitsch entered the Carinthian state government as a regional councilor . Thanks to his good contacts with the conservative administrative staff, he ensured an efficient harmonization policy . Until 1939 he accumulated the following functions: Head of the Volkstumsstelle at the Landeshauptmannschaft Carinthia, special representative of the Gauleitung for the national political questions of the mixed-language area, representative for foreign policy questions for Carinthia of the department Ribbentrop , regional association leader of the association for Germanism abroad , member of the agricultural policy office .

Maier-Kaibitsch was the central figure of the National Socialist Slovenian policy. In a meeting of the Reich Ministry of the Interior , it was determined that neither authorities nor parties may take action on this matter without Maier-Kaibitsch's consent.

Maier-Kaibitsch was accepted into the SS as early as 1938 and was assigned to the staff of the 90th SS Standard as SS-Oberscharführer . In 1939 he became SS-Obersturmbannführer, in 1940 he was transferred to the security service and rose to SS-Standartenführer in 1942.

After the conquest of Yugoslavia in the Balkan campaign in 1941, neighborhood policy considerations had become irrelevant. The plans provided for 100,000 Slovenes to be relocated from the Upper Carniola and Miessal (then known as "Southern Carinthia"). 2,500 were actually forcibly sent. 168 Slovenian families were resettled in Carinthia, the plan was to resettle around 50,000 people according to “racial characteristics and political reports”. In 1942 Maier-Kaibitsch said at a meeting of the Gauamt für Volkstumsfragen on July 10th: The events in the Balkans [...] give us the means to put an end to the so-called Slovenian minority in the area north of the Karawanken.

post war period

In 1945 Maier-Kaibitsch was interned by the British military government and listed in the first Austrian war criminals list on December 4th. However, charges against him were only brought against him in October 1947, after he had been handed over to the Austrian authorities on May 1, 1946.

Maier-Kaibitsch was found guilty in October 1947, in particular under Section 5a of the War Crimes Act (expulsion of Slovenes from their homeland) and sentenced to lifelong heavy imprisonment. Maier-Kaibitsch defended himself as follows, among other things: After the resettlement, I always said: 'I am not to blame if it had been up to me, nothing would have been taken from anyone, something would have been given to everyone.'

After the signing of the state treaty, the Carinthian Landsmannschaft applied for the amnesty of Maier-Kaibitsch at the end of May 1955 , because he had made great contributions to the homeland and had achieved through his personal influence that the relocation of Carinthian Windischen ordered by a higher authority was substantially reduced was . In 1956 Maier-Kaibitsch was released from prison due to illness and died two years later. His Germanization policy was relativized in obituaries, so the Carinthian Homeland Service said in 1959: Alois Maier-Kaibitsch has his monument in the hearts of the Carinthians. When the fires of freedom light up from the mountains on October 10th every year, our compatriots will remember this man who went through the hard path of suffering out of boundless love for his homeland.

supporting documents

literature

• Alfred Este: Carinthia's brown elite . Hermagoras / Morhorjeva, Klagenfurt / Celovec, Ljubljana, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-85013-476-8 , pp. 112-120.

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} August Walzl: The infiltration of the "patriotic organizations" , in: the same: The Jews in Carinthia and the Third Reich . Verlag des Kärntner Landesarchiv, Klagenfurt 2009, ISBN 978-3-900531-72-0 , pp. 114–128.
2. ↑ Quoted from: Alfred Este: Kärntens brown Elite , 1997, p. 117.
3. ^ Martin Fritzl: The Carinthian Homeland Service . Drava, Klagenfurt 1990, ISBN 3-85435-117-8 , p. 21f.
4. ↑ Quoted from: Alfred Este: Kärntens brown Elite , 1997, p. 119.
5. ^ Alfred Elste, Michael Koschat, Hanzi Filipič: Nazi Austria in the dock . Hermagoras, Klagenfurt - Ljubljana - Vienna 2001, ISBN 3-85013-754-6 , pp. 51, 57-65.
6. ↑ Landesgericht Klagenfurt, Vg 18 Vr 443/46, minutes of the main negotiation protocol, p. 2ff. Quoted from: Alfred Este: Kärntens brown Elite , 1997, p. 120.
7. ↑ Landgesgericht Klagenfurt, Vg 18 Vr 443/46, Kärntner Landsmannschaft to Volksgericht Graz, May 31, 1955, quoted from: Alfred Elste, Michael Koschat, Hanzi Filipič: Nazi Austria in the dock . 2001, p. 64.
8. ↑ Kärntner Landsmannschaft, issue 1/1959, p. 11f. Quoted from: Alfred Este: Kärntens brown Elite , 1997, p. 120.