Erich Rajakowitsch

Erich Rajakowitsch

Erich Rajakowitsch , later Erich Raja (born November 23, 1905 in Trieste , † April 14, 1988 in Graz ) was an Austrian lawyer and SS-Obersturmführer who, as an employee of Adolf Eichmann , played a key role in the deportation of Jews to the German-occupied Netherlands during the Second World War was.

Life

Rajakowitsch, whose father was a high school professor , grew up in Graz after the end of the First World War and finished his school career there with the Matura . At the University of Graz he completed a degree in Law , graduating in November 1931st He experienced his student socialization in the Academic Corps Teutonia in Graz , which was politically German-national, anti-Semitic and anti-democratic. After completing his studies and court year, the doctor of law worked as a trainee and lawyer in Graz. From the beginning of 1938 to November 1938 Rajakowitsch was a trainee in the Vienna law firm Heinrich Gallop . Rajakowitsch was married to Anna Maria Rintelen, daughter of Anton Rintelen , from 1934 .

Involvement in aryanization business after the annexation of Austria

After the " Anschluss of Austria " to the German Reich , Rajakowitsch was accepted into the NSDAP with membership number 6.330.373 . Gallop and his apprentice Rajakowitsch developed the “ Aryanization against emigration” model by having the domestic assets of very wealthy Jewish clients transferred to them and, in return, carrying out their departure formalities. Rajakowitsch was also involved in the Gildemeester campaign , through which the emigration of poor Jews by wealthy Jews was financed. In this context, from late autumn 1938, he and his new partner Hugo Weber headed the “asset transaction” for the fund. Through these financial transactions, he also worked closely with the Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Vienna, through which he met Adolf Eichmann . Rajakowitsch also set up an “emigration fund” at the Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Prague , which he supervised.

Second World War - Legal advisor to Adolf Eichmann

After the beginning of the Second World War , Rajakowitsch became a member of the SS in autumn 1939 and was deployed in Nisko as part of the Nisko Plan . With the SS he rose to SS-Obersturmführer in 1940.

Through Eichmann, Rajakowitsch came to the Eichmann department of the Reich Main Security Office in Berlin in the spring of 1940 . Rajakowitsch became a close associate of Eichmann and a speaker “for processing legal questions at the central offices for Jewish emigration in Vienna, Prague and Berlin”. According to Eichmann, he was an "extraordinarily moderate and clever lawyer, whose help I did not like to do without because he embodied the lively practical law and not the dry administrative law". Together with Eichmann and Theodor Dannecker , Rajakowitsch was one of the staff of the Eichmann department, who until August 1940 dealt with the Madagascar plan for the deportation of European Jews to the African island, which was never implemented .

Establishment of the Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Amsterdam

From April 1941 Rajakowitsch was deployed in the German-occupied Netherlands. His task there should include the establishment of the Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Amsterdam and the establishment and management of an emigration fund. Since the Reich Commissioner for the Netherlands Arthur Seyß-Inquart was able to briefly prevail against the Higher SS and Police Leader Hanns Albin Rauter in the competence dispute over Dutch “Jewish affairs” with the SS , Hans Fischböck finally became head of the emigration fund. As before in Czechoslovakia and Austria, Rajakowitsch was a business partner of Dresdner Bank in the Netherlands.

Head of Division at the BdS in the Netherlands

In August 1941, Rajakowitsch finally took over the provisional management of the “Sonderreferats J” of the Gestapo department at the commander of the Security Police and the SD (BdS) in The Hague, Wilhelm Harster , “to combat Judaism in its entirety, whose goal is the final solution to the Jewish question through the evacuation of all Jews ”. From February 1942, the "Sonderreferats J" traded as Department IV B 4 and Rajakowitsch was replaced by Wilhelm Zoepf as department head and represented him in absentia. In this capacity, Rajakowitsch was also involved in the deportation of Jews from the Netherlands to the extermination camps . Rajakowitsch himself took over Section II B (confiscation of assets as well as naturalization and expatriation) in the BdS office in The Hague in February 1942.

Report to the Waffen SS

In October 1943 Rajakowitsch switched to the Waffen SS and completed an officer course at the SS Junker School in Bad Tölz . He then took part in the German-Soviet War until the end of the war .

post war period

After the end of the Second World War Rajakowitsch was briefly in American captivity, from which he was able to escape. Rajakowitsch went into hiding and stayed in Trieste from 1946.

The law firm Weber / Rajakowitsch at the address Vienna I, Schottenring 1 / Hessgasse 6 was orphaned after the end of the war and was taken over by Gustav Warmuth , the curator appointed by the bar , whose own office was no longer usable due to bomb damage. Warmuth had found masses of files in the rooms of the former Weber / Rajakowitsch law firm that were incomplete and disorganized. After his inspection of the files, according to Warmuth, “only purchases were made in real estate and there was no client base at all, as well as no receipts whatsoever.” The files also included material on the “emigration fund”. Various government agencies, such as B. the People's Court inspected the files and the occupation authorities invited Warmuth to interrogations in this connection in the post-war years.

The American counter intelligence corps (CIC) came across the name Rajakowitsch during an investigation into Eichmann in 1946. Due to a request from Austria regarding restitution claims by Jewish Austrians, the CIC searched for Rajakowitsch without success in 1947.

After an arrest warrant against Rajakowitsch had been issued in Austria, he fled to Buenos Aires in 1951 and from there submitted an application to be “released”. After this application was accepted, he temporarily moved to Graz in August 1952. The proceedings pending against Rajakowitsch before the Graz Regional Court for Criminal Matters under the War Crimes Act were discontinued in 1953. After having regained Austrian citizenship several years before his final conviction (see below, “Trial in Vienna”) , he finally obtained a valid passport in the name of Erich Raja through the Consulate General in Trieste .

Entrepreneur in Milan

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) became aware of Raja in 1953. He had invested in the import and export company Enneri & Company in Trieste and set up a branch of the company in Milan , where the company's headquarters were later relocated and Raja finally took up residence. This company soon played an important role in trade with states of the Eastern Bloc , u. a. she exported mercury to Czechoslovakia . Because of these transactions, the company was added to the US Government Watch List in January 1954 . The CIA, which had no knowledge of Raja's Nazi past, tried unsuccessfully in June 1959 to win him over for an intelligence activity against the GDR and the People's Republic of China . Finally, the transactions of Enneri & Co. as well as Raja were observed by the CIA.

After divorcing his first wife, Raja married Giulona Tendella, a secretary at Enneri & Co.

Trial in Vienna

As a result of the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem , where the name Rajakowitsch was also mentioned, the investigation into Raja began in Austria in 1961. Incriminating material was collected against Raja through Simon Wiesenthal with the Documentation Center of the Association of Jewish Persons Persecuted by the Nazi Regime and the Institute for War Documentation in Amsterdam. Wiesenthal established Raja's whereabouts in Milan in early 1962. In May 1962, Austrian authorities sent the Israeli government a list of questions about Raja that were to be put to Eichmann before his execution. After Rajakowitsch was finally wanted for aiding and abetting murder . At the beginning of April 1963 he left his apartment in Milan and came to Austria via Switzerland and Munich . On April 14, 1963, he voluntarily surrendered to justice in Vienna and was taken into custody. (In this context, the public also became aware of the employment of Raja's former superior, Oberregierungsrat Harster, in the Upper Bavarian regional council, who had been sentenced to twelve years imprisonment in absentia in the Netherlands for his involvement in the Nazi regime. He was immediately retired because of his proven incapacity .)

On February 13, 1965, the trial against Raja began before the jury at the Vienna Regional Court for Criminal Matters . Raja was charged with “ordered murder” of Jewish victims as part of the desk crime complex. The indictment was essentially based on a telex brought in by Wiesenthal and written by Raja. In it, Raja "signed a telex on August 12, 1942, initiating the deportation of 83 Dutch Jews from a camp not far from Paris, thus kicking off the death march of 100,000 Dutch people." Since, after two years of investigation, there was no further valid evidence against Raja, the public prosecutor dropped the murder charge and instead pleaded for a conviction under Section 87 of the 1852 Criminal Law (in the re-pronouncement of the StG 1945). This paragraph made it possible to punish “malicious damage to property”, in particular during railway operations or the deliberate endangerment of human life. On this legal basis, Raja was sentenced by the jury to two and a half years in prison on March 2, 1965 and released from prison six months after the end of the trial because of his time in custody.

The trial was followed by twelve trial observers present in the courtroom, who provided the Dutch media with trial reports. After the judgment against Raja, the Austrian judiciary was accused of negligence in dealing with Nazi crimes.

Rehabilitation attempt

After his release from prison, Raja wrote a justification with the title Kopfjagd auf Rajakowitsch , which appeared in Offenbach am Main in 1966 .

Furthermore, even after Raja had served his sentence in Austria, there was an arrest warrant against him for participating in the Holocaust from the Netherlands. In order to forestall the threat of arrest for extradition, he returned to Vienna after his passport had already been confiscated at his holiday destination in Piran in Yugoslavia . Shortly afterwards, around October 4, 1967, Enrico, alias Erich Raja, invited a press conference to Café Landtmann , because he felt that the reports “had disturbed him about his clash with the Yugoslav authorities”. According to his own statements, he had "of his own free will" and - despite his passport withdrawal - claimed to have entered Austria legally and stated: "Here I am safe from persecution." Since he was an Austrian citizen again in the meantime, the Republic of Austria was able to legally enforce him do not deliver to the Netherlands. In his adopted country of Italy, on the other hand, he was declared an “undesirable foreigner”. In addition, Raja described Wiesenthal as a liar at the press conference. And he denied having knowledge of the Holocaust during the Nazi era, even though he was a “staunch National Socialist”.

Raja had legal disputes with Wiesenthal about his publication But the Murderers Live and was able to obtain the seizure: According to contemporary statements (Wiener AZ , October 5, 1967) “but not because of the description of his [Rajas] work in the 'final solution to the Jewish question. ' Rajakowitsch feels disturbed in his business because of the word 'fraud' which occurs in connection with his naturalization [in Austria]. ”According to a later account in 1968, the seizure took place in November 1967, after the press conference. The publication in question contained the claim that Raja was a Soviet agent after the end of the war .

Until 1987, Raja tried repeatedly, unsuccessfully, to reopen the criminal proceedings against him. The University of Graz wanted to give him his doctoral degree, which had been revoked, in 1986, despite the allegations against him.

literature

• Richard Breitman, Norman JW Goda, Paul Brown: The Gestapo . In: Richard Breitman, Norman JW Goda, Timothy Naftali, Robert Wolfe: US Intelligence and the Nazis. Cambridge UP, Cambridge 2005, ISBN 0-521-61794-4 , pp. 359ff.
• Joachim Castan, Thomas F. Schneider (eds.): Hans Calmeyer and the rescue of Jews in the Netherlands; Catalog for the exhibition of the same name. V&R unipress, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-89971-122-X .
• Mathias Middelberg: Jewish law, Jewish policy and the lawyer Hans Calmeyer in the occupied Netherlands 1940–1945. V&R Unipress, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-89971-123-8 .
• Theodor Venus, Alexandra-Eileen Wenck: The confiscation of Jewish assets as part of the Gildemeester campaign. An empirical study on the organization, form and change of "Aryanization" and Jewish emigration in Austria 1938-1941. Oldenbourg, Vienna a. a. 2004, ISBN 3-7029-0496-4 , ( Publications of the Austrian Historical Commission 20, 2), ( National Socialist Institutions of Property Removal 2).
• Simon Wiesenthal : But the murderers are alive. Edited and introduced by Joseph Wechselberg. Droemer / Knaur, Munich and Zurich 1967.
• Anna Hájková: The Making of a Central Office: The Eichmann Men in Amsterdam. Theresienstadt Studies and Documents (2003), pp. 353–382.

Web links

• Literature by and about Erich Rajakowitsch in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Precise date of death according to Theodor Venus, Alexandra-Eileen Wenck: The deprivation of Jewish property as part of the Gildemeester campaign. An empirical study on the organization, form and change of "Aryanization" and Jewish emigration in Austria 1938-1941. Oldenbourg, Vienna a. a. 2004, ISBN 3-7029-0496-4 , ( Publications of the Austrian Historical Commission 20, 2), ( National Socialist Institutions of Property Removal 2), p. 486
2. ^ Theodor Venus, Alexandra-Eileen Wenck: The deprivation of Jewish assets as part of the Gildemeester campaign. An empirical study on the organization, form and change of "Aryanization" and Jewish emigration in Austria 1938-1941. Oldenbourg, Vienna a. a. 2004, ISBN 3-7029-0496-4 , ( Publications of the Austrian Historical Commission 20, 2), ( National Socialist Institutions of Property Removal 2), p. 142
3. ^ Richard Bayer: Chronicle of the Academic Corps Teutonia zu Graz. 2nd part . Graz 1974, p. 22 ff.
4. ^ ^{A b} Jean Améry : Works: Selected letters 1945–1978, Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-608-93568-4 , p. 689
5. ^ Theodor Venus, Alexandra-Eileen Wenck: The deprivation of Jewish assets as part of the Gildemeester campaign. An empirical study on the organization, form and change of "Aryanization" and Jewish emigration in Austria 1938-1941. Oldenbourg, Vienna a. a. 2004, ISBN 3-7029-0496-4 , ( Publications of the Austrian Historical Commission 20, 2), ( National Socialist Institutions of Property Removal 2), pp. 120, 130
6. ↑ ^{a b c d} Austria - War Criminal Trial. Judge moment . In: Der Spiegel . No. 11 , 1965, pp. 124-126 ( online ).
7. ^ Jean Améry : Works: Selected Letters 1945-1978 . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-608-93568-4 , pp. 689 f.
8. ↑ Hans Safrian: The Eichmann men. Europaverlag, Vienna a. a. 1993, ISBN 3-203-51115-0 , p. 35 f.
9. ↑ Gabriele Anderl, Dirk Rupnow, Alexandra-Eileen Wenck, Historians' Commission of the Republic of Austria: The Central Office for Jewish Emigration as a Robbery Institution . Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2004, p. 183 f.
10. ^ ^{A b} Walter Manoschek : “Serbia is free of Jews”. Military occupation policy and the extermination of Jews in Serbia 1941/42. Oldenbourg, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-486-55974-5 , pp. 102-108 ( Contributions to Military History 38), p. 37
11. ↑ ^{a b c} Joachim Castan / Thomas F. Schneider (eds.): Hans Calmeyer and the rescue of Jews in the Netherlands Göttingen 2003, p. 50
12. ^ Institute Theresienstädter Initiative: Theresienstädter Studies and Documents , 2003, p. 363
13. ^ Ernst Klee: The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 477.
14. ↑ Eichmann on Rajakowitsch. Quoted from: Hannah Arendt : Eichmann in Jerusalem. A report on the banality of evil . Piper, 1995, p. 73
15. ↑ Quoted from: The population of Madagascar should be resettled - Adolf Eichmann states that he wants to deport Jews to an "island reserve" - ​​continuation of the documentation (part 13) . In: Die Welt of August 26, 1998
16. ↑ Rauter wrote to Seyß-Inquart on April 18, 1941 regarding the establishment of a central office for Jewish emigration in Amsterdam. Justice and Nazi Crimes - Volume XXV, serial number 645, p. 2 ( Memento from April 29, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
17. ↑ Hans-Joachim Heuer: Geheime Staatspolizei - about killing and the tendencies towards decivilization . Walter de Gruyter, 1995, ISBN 978-3-11-014516-8 , p. 99
18. ^ Mathias Middelberg: Jewish law, Jewish policy and the lawyer Hans Calmeyer in the occupied Netherlands 1940-1945. V&R Unipress, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-89971-123-8 , pp. 130f.
19. ^ Mathias Middelberg: Jewish law, Jewish policy and the lawyer Hans Calmeyer in the occupied Netherlands 1940-1945. V&R Unipress, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-89971-123-8 , p. 131
20. ^ Brigitte Bailer-Galanda : The Origin of Restitution and Compensation Legislation: The Republic of Austria and the Assets Stolen During the Nazi Era . 2003, p. 543
21. ↑ ^{a b c} Thomas Albrich, Winfried Garscha , Martin Polaschek (eds.): Holocaust and war crimes in court. The case of Austria. Studienverlag, Innsbruck 2006, ISBN 3-7065-4258-7 , p. 175
22. ^ ^{A b} Edith Blaschitz: Nazi refugees of Austrian origin: The way to Argentina. In: Jahrbuch 2003. Documentation Archive of Austrian Resistance (Ed.), Vienna 2003, pp. 103-136.
23. ^ Warmuth on December 1, 1948 in writing to the District Court of Inner City Vienna. Quoted from: Gabriele Anderl, Dirk Rupnow, Alexandra-Eileen Wenck, Commission of Historians of the Republic of Austria: The Central Office for Jewish Emigration as a looting institution . Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2004, p. 316.
24. ↑ Gabriele Anderl, Dirk Rupnow, Alexandra-Eileen Wenck, Historians' Commission of the Republic of Austria: The Central Office for Jewish Emigration as a Robbery Institution . Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2004, p. 22.
25. ↑ Gabriele Anderl, Dirk Rupnow, Alexandra-Eileen Wenck, Historians' Commission of the Republic of Austria: The Central Office for Jewish Emigration as a Robbery Institution . Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2004, p. 316.
26. ^ ^{A b c} Richard Breitman, Norman JW Goda, Paul Brown: The Gestapo. In: Richard Breitman, Norman JW Goda, Timothy Naftali, Robert Wolfe: US Intelligence and the Nazis. Cambridge UP, Cambridge 2005, ISBN 0-521-61794-4 , pp. 360f.
27. ↑ ^{a b} Storm scenes around Rajakowitsch. Eichmann's employees invited to the press conference . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna October 5, 1967, p. 5 , bottom center ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
28. ↑ ^{a b} Simon Wiesenthal : But the murderers are alive. Edited and introduced by Joseph Wechselberg. Droemer / Knaur, Munich and Zurich 1967, p. 252.
29. ↑ Alfred Ableitinger: History of Styria. Historical Provincial Commission for Styria (Ed.), Graz 2004, p. 111.
30. ↑ ^{a b} Bernhard Blank: "Endangerment of human life by the train transport to Auschwitz". The Austrian judiciary and the jury trials against Eichmann's aides Franz Novak and Erich Rajakowitsch from 1961 to 1987. Abstract. In: Website of the documentation archive of the Austrian resistance .
31. ↑ ^{a b} Joachim Castan, Thomas F. Schneider (Ed.): Hans Calmeyer and the rescue of Jews in the Netherlands. Göttingen 2003, p. 51.
32. ↑ ^{a b} Chronicle of April 1963: 4.4. - Nazi crimes. In: Sheets for German and international politics . Blätter Verlagsgesellschaft (ed.), Year 1963, issue 05 (May), pp. 329–331, Berlin 1963; Full text ( Memento of the original from May 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: DEA - The Electronic Archive. Edited by Richard Stahl. 
33. ↑ ^{a b} Sabine Loitfellner: The reception of jury trials for Nazi crimes in selected Austrian newspapers 1996–1975. Inventory, documentation and analysis of published historical images on a forgotten chapter of contemporary Austrian history. (PDF; 825 kB) p. 103 f. In: Justice and Nazi violent crimes. Sub-project »Society and Justice - Development of the Legal Basis, Public Echo and Political Disputes about the Punishment of Nazi Crimes in Austria«. Financed by the anniversary fund of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank . Research report.
34. ↑ Otto M. Maschke: A search for understanding - Austria in the view of the Netherlands. In: Oliver Rathkolb and others: Seen with different eyes. International perceptions of Austria 1955–1990. Austrian national history after 1945. Vienna 2002, p. 374.
35. ↑ Gabriele Anderl, Dirk Rupnow, Alexandra-Eileen Wenck, Historians' Commission of the Republic of Austria: The Central Office for Jewish Emigration as a Robbery Institution . Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2004, p. 184.
36. ↑ Political Studies: Monthly Issues of the University of Political Sciences Munich, issues 177–182, Isar-Verlag, Munich 1968, p. 87.
37. ^ Journal of Geopolitics , Volume 39, 1968, p. 93.
38. ^ Wolfgang Neugebauer : Address at the opening of the Anne Frank exhibition at the Mauthausen Memorial, September 13, 1999.