Anton Wintersteiger

Anton Wintersteiger 1938

Anton Wintersteiger (born April 30, 1900 in Salzburg ; † August 8, 1990 there ) was the first Gauleiter of Salzburg from 1934 - until the "Anschluss of Austria" in 1938 illegal .

Life

Wintersteiger's father, who was also called Anton, was first a brewery servant in the Stiegl brewery , then the innkeeper at the "zum Wolf" inn, Kaigasse 7. His mother's name was Anna Arnstorfer, she had married her husband on January 3rd, 1900 in St. Blasius . Anton Wintersteiger attended elementary and secondary school in his hometown. After completing his school career, he joined the Austro-Hungarian Army in March 1918 and was trained at a reserve officers' school. Soon afterwards he completed an engineering degree at the Technical University in Vienna , which he graduated in 1925 with a degree in civil engineering. Afterwards he worked in the river construction office in the course of the Drau regulation until 1928 for the Carinthian provincial government and then headed the construction office in Bad Gastein until his dismissal due to political activities .

He joined the Austrian NSDAP as early as 1930 (membership number 361.428) and was local group leader and SA leader in Bad Gastein . He was elected to the Salzburg state parliament in 1932 . During the Austrian Civil War of 1934, he was temporarily taken to the Wöllersdorf detention camp as a National Socialist . From 1934 until the Anschluss he acted first as deputy Gauleiter and from 1936 as Gauleiter Salzburg of the banned NSDAP and after the " Anschluss of Austria " on March 13, 1938, he was provincial governor and Gauleiter of the Reichsgau Salzburg in the German Reich for a short time . On May 22nd, 1938, Adolf Hitler personally appointed Friedrich Rainer as Gauleiter of Salzburg, Wintersteiger was Gauleiter deputy until 1945 and also an appointed member of the Reichstag . In 1938 he changed from the SA to the SS with the rank of Standartenführer (membership number 292.798) and in 1941 he achieved the rank of SS Oberführer .

On April 1, 1948, Wintersteiger was sentenced by a people's court to two years ' imprisonment and financial collapse for high treason . Wintersteiger was acquitted of the charge of being a war criminal based on statements made by Governor Josef Rehrl (ÖVP). The prison sentence had been served off by pre-trial detention. After 1948 he worked for SAFE, the forerunner of Salzburg AG . His grave is in the Salzburg municipal cemetery .

literature

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

Web links

• Anton Wintersteiger in the database of members of the Reichstag

Individual evidence

1. ↑ digitized version
2. ^ Wolfgang Graf: Austrian SS Generals. Himmler's reliable vassals. 2012, p. 220 f.