Anton Walter Freud

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Anton Walter Freud (born April 3, 1921 in Vienna ; died February 8, 2004 in Oxted ) was an Austrian agent for the British intelligence service SOE who was involved in tracking down Nazi war criminals .

Life

Anton Walter Freud's father was the lawyer Jean Martin Freud , a son of the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud , his mother Esti Freud , his sister Sophie Freud . After attending the Realgymnasium in Vienna, he switched to the day school of a state education center. When Austria was annexed, he was forced, like many Viennese Jews, to clean the street before Hitler moved in. His mother and sister fled to Paris, he and his father fled to England. Freud completed his school career there and began studying aeronautical engineering.

As a result of the French campaign of the Wehrmacht Freud was designated an "enemy alien" (in June 1940 enemy alien ) as well as his father on the Isle of Man interned. Soon afterwards he was brought to Australia with 2000 other emigrants in the troop transport HMT Dunera , where he was transferred via Sydney to Camp Hay (Outback). In October 1941, Freud was able to return to England due to the changed political mood towards emigrants.

There he reported for service with the Pioneer Corps . Finally, Freud was advertised by the SOE, completed intensive training there and was relocated to southern Italy. There he had to wait a long time for an assignment until he and five other SOE agents jumped parachute over Upper Styria at the end of April 1945 . After landing he could not find his comrades again and made his way to Zeltweg , where he asked the commander of the local airfield to give up. Freud was taken into German custody and handed over to members of the US Army on the way to Waidhofen an der Ybbs . On May 8, 1945 he returned to London.

In the fall of 1945 he returned to Germany and was there the in Bad Oeynhausen stationed War Crimes Investigation Team (WCIT) No. 2, a unit for the investigation and prosecution of war crimes . Among other things, Freud led the investigation against members of the Tesch & Stabenow (Testa) company, which Zyklon B had delivered to concentration camps . In addition to Bruno Tesch , he interrogated a. a. also the former camp commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, Rudolf Höss . Freud was also responsible for the investigation into the child murder at Bullenhuser Damm in Hamburg. Freud was able to track down the former SS medical officer Alfred Trzebinski of the Neuengamme concentration camp on February 1, 1946, and question him about child murder. Freud also conducted interrogations with other people involved in child murder, such as Johann Frahm, and so this crime could be included in the Neuengamme main trial and ancillary trials and punished. Freud retired from the service in 1947 with the rank of major.

In 1946 he married a noble Danish woman. The couple had three children. Freud studied chemistry and then worked for several British companies until his retirement in 1977. In retirement, he ran genealogy and wrote pamphlets on his experiences during and after the Second World War .

Freud died of illness in February 2004.

literature

  • Adi Wimmer, ed .: Home has become alien to them, the stranger has not become home. Memories of Austrian Jews from Exile . Publishing house for social criticism, Vienna 1993, ISBN 978-3-85115-173-2
  • Elisabeth Lebensaft - Christoph Mentschl: "Are you prepared to do a dangerous job?" In the footsteps of Austrian and German exiles in the service of the SOE , Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2010.
  • Eva Weissweiler : The Freuds . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2006

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Eva Weisweiler: Die Freuds , 2006, p. 387
  2. ↑ Alyn Bessmann, Marc Buggeln: Commander and direct offender before the military court. British prosecution of crimes in Neuengamme concentration camp and its satellite camps . In: Journal of History. Issue 6, 2005, p. 526.
  3. ^ Günther Schwarberg: The SS doctor and the children from Bullenhuser Damm. Göttingen 1988, p. 78ff.
personal data
SURNAME Freud, Anton Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian SOE agent
DATE OF BIRTH April 3, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH February 8, 2004
Place of death Oxted