Erwein von Thun and Hohenstein

Erwein Sigmund von Thun and Hohenstein (born April 4, 1896 in Hietzing near Vienna ; † February 12, 1946 in Sopron , Hungary ) was an Austrian officer in the intelligence service and commandant of Abwehrgruppe 218 "Edelweiss".

Life

Erwein von Thun-Hohenstein was born as the son of Felix Leopold Graf von Thun and Hohenstein (1859–1941). He attended the cavalry cadet school in Mährisch Weißkirchen and volunteered for the "Schwarzenberg Uhlans" when the war broke out in 1914 . After the First World War he was released as a first lieutenant in the reserve. He took part in the Kapp Putsch and later moved to Argentina , where he worked as a farmer.

It was reactivated in 1940 during the Second World War . Because of his talent for languages - he could a variety of languages, including Czech, Slovak, Polish, English and almost perfect Russian - he was in the rank of lieutenant of Defense allocated, namely the Training Regiment Brandenburg zbV 800 , a special unit , whose main tasks sabotage operations behind belonged to the enemy lines and fighting partisans.

At the end of 1940, Thun-Hohenstein took part in the preparations for the " Operation Felix ", which was about the conquest of Gibraltar . He was supposed to lead a commando unit, but the mission did not get beyond the planning.

In mid-1941, after the attack on the Soviet Union , he was commissioned to recruit volunteers (mostly Ukrainian nationalists and Cossacks ) from the Soviet prisoners of war . From this volunteer unit, he put together shock troops and sabotage units. Then he commanded a company of the Ukrainian battalion "Nightingale" of the Legion of Ukrainian Nationalists . Thun-Hohenstein took part personally in most of the missions. In the western Ukrainian city of Lviv , members of the “Nightingale” battalion were heavily involved in a massacre of the city's Jewish residents . From September 1942 he headed the "Abwehrtrupp Panzer 207" in Front Reconnaissance Command 203, whose sabotage actions carried out in the rear of the Red Army claimed 600 Soviet victims. He then headed the "Abwehrtrupp 204" until July 25, 1943, whose task in the Donets area was, in particular, reconnaissance and sabotage.

In 1943, Thun-Hohenstein became the head of the Abwehrstelle Rome. After Italy surrendered in the summer of 1944, he was summoned to Milan .

In November 1944 he was commissioned to set up a special unit to fight partisans in Slovakia . The Slovak national uprising had just failed there and many members of the army had joined the partisans. The unit over which Thun-Hohenstein received command was known as Abwehrgruppe 218 "Edelweiss". It was around 300 strong and consisted of Slovaks, Caucasians, Cossacks and Germans. Thun-Hohenstein used the code name “Benesch” because of its resemblance to the President of the Czech government in exile, Edvard Beneš .

Defense group 218 was subordinate to Front Control Center II South-East. Since the SS took over the Abwehr in spring 1944, it was subordinate to Dept. VI-S of the Reich Security Main Office , namely Otto Skorzeny, and was later renamed "SS-Jagdverband Süd-Ost".

Abwehrgruppe 218 is believed to have been responsible for numerous crimes in the last months of the war in Slovakia. Mainly one operated against partisans , but the persecution and murder of Jews was also part of their activity. The Thun-Hohenstein unit is said to have killed around 300 Slovak partisans and taken 600 prisoners. Most of them were sent to concentration camps .

A member of Abwehrgruppe 218, Ladislav Nižňanský , was indicted in Munich in 2004 for the Ostry Grun massacre in Slovakia. Thun-Hohenstein's role was also highlighted during the trial.

Abwehrgruppe 218 was also involved in the arrest and extradition to the Einsatzgruppen of the security service of a group of Anglo-American liaison and reconnaissance officers. They were deposed in Slovakia as part of a joint operation by the English SOE ("OPERATION WINDPROOF") and the American OSS ("MISSION DAWES") and were supposed to support the partisans. The English and American officers were later deported to Mauthausen , tortured and shot.

At the end of the war, Thun-Hohenstein, now with the rank of major , was taken prisoner by the Soviets in May 1945. On January 18, 1946, he was sentenced to death by a Soviet military tribunal. The sentence was carried out on February 12, 1946, by shooting in the neck.

Awards

Erwein von Thun-Hohenstein held the following awards:

Iron Cross 1st and 2nd Class, Infantry Assault Badge , Wound Badge in Silver, German Cross in Gold, Military Order of Savoy (Grand Officer Class).

literature

• Werner Brockdorff: Secret Commandos of the Second World War , Wels 1967. ISBN 3-88102-059-4 .
• Dietrich F. Witzel: Command units of the defense in World War II , in: Military history contributions , Vol. IV, Herford / Bonn 1990.
• Genealogical manual of the nobility . Count's Houses Volume X (Complete Series Volume 77). Limburg 1981, p. 443.
• Klaus-Dieter Müller, Thomas Schaarschmidt, Mike Schmeitzner , Andreas Weigelt: Death sentences of Soviet military tribunals against Germans (1944–1947). A historical-biographical study . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-525-36968-5 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Franz Graf von Czernin and Chudenitz: Biography Erwein Graf von Thun-Hohenstein. B / 1650: 5 and 26th Vienna War Archives .
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Klaus-Dieter Müller, Thomas Schaarschmidt, Mike Schmeitzner, Andreas Weigelt: Death sentences of Soviet military tribunals against Germans (1944-1947). A historical-biographical study , Göttingen 2015, pp. 707f.
3. ^ Tatjana Tönsmeyer : The Third Reich and Slovakia. Paderborn, 2003.
4. ^ Rudolf Melzer: Karpatendeutsche Landmannschaft in Austria. Vienna, 1996, p. 504.
5. ↑ Krug, Alexander: The murder squads of Ostry Grun. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , November 15, 2004, p. 43.
6. ↑ Jim Downs: World War II: OSS tragedy in Slovakia. Oceanside, 2002. ISBN 0971748209 .
7. ↑ Interrogation protocol Thun-Hohenstein, SNU Museum, Banska Bystrica , Slovakia.