Anton Kless Edler from Drauwörth

Anton Viktor Oswald Kless Edler von Drauwörth (born June 8, 1882 in Gurk , † March 19, 1961 in Vienna ) was an Austrian officer, most recently in the rank of major general and SS brigade leader .

Life

Kless Edler von Drauwörth was the son of a judge. After attending primary schools in Judenburg and Leoben , he went to the military lower secondary school in Güns and then the military upper secondary school in Mährisch Weißkirchen and finally to the Maria Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt. In 1902 he joined an infantry regiment of the Joint Army with the rank of lieutenant and trained as a general staff officer at the Vienna War School . As a general staff officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army , he took part in the First World War.

After the end of the war, he worked in the State Office for the Army from 1919, where he headed the military policy department in the course of the Carinthian referendum and the Burgenland crisis. In the armed forces he reached the rank of major general and retired in 1930.

After the annexation of Austria , he joined the NSDAP in March 1938 ( membership number 7,683,587). As a functionary of the NS-Reichskriegerbundes and Gaukriegerführer in the Gaukriegerverband Donau, he was admitted to the SS in 1938 as SS-Standartenführer (SS-Nr. 310.301) and promoted to SS-Oberführer with effect from November 9, 1939. Although he still belonged to the Catholic Church, on April 20, 1943 he was appointed SS-Brigadführer .

literature

• Wolfgang Graf: Austrian SS generals. Himmler's reliable vassals , Hermagoras-Verlag, Klagenfurt / Ljubljana / Vienna 2012, ISBN 978-3-7086-0578-4 .