Franz Augsberger

Franz Augsberger (left) and Fritz Klingenberg , 1943

Franz Xaver Josef Maria Augsberger (born October 10, 1905 in Vienna , † March 19, 1945 near Neustadt / Upper Silesia ) was an Austrian SS brigade leader and major general of the Waffen SS .

Life

Franz Augsberger was born in Vienna as the son of a hotelier. Augsberger attended elementary and secondary school and then a one-year course at the military academy. He then graduated from the Higher Technical School in Vienna, which he graduated with the Matura . Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts and the Vienna University of Technology followed. Ultimately, he finished his professional training with the degree of a qualified engineer or architect. He then worked briefly as a freelance architect in Vienna. He later left Austria for 18 months for Norway , where he worked as an engineer and at the same time learned the Norwegian language.

In 1927 he joined the Styrian Homeland Security . Since he was not classified as particularly qualified there, he left it in October 1930 while joining the NSDAP (membership number 360.700). From 1932 he was a member of the SA . In February 1934 he moved from the SA to the Allgemeine SS , where he was accepted as an SS man. Until August 1933 he was responsible for the Nazi propaganda in Vienna and resigned after the ban of the NSDAP in Austria and the July coup in the German Reich , as he was wanted for the theft of arms and later expropriated and expatriated. Augsberger was the SS's Fund in Dachau looked after and entered 1935 as unterscharführer into the SS-Verfügungstruppe one. He then completed a leadership course at the SS Junk School in Braunschweig and initially worked full-time for the SS as an SS Untersturmführer , a. a. in the Race and Settlement Main Office .

At the beginning of 1939 Augsberger switched to the SS standard "Der Führer" , where he stayed until 1940 after the start of the Second World War . From October 1940 Augsberger served as leader of the 3rd company of the replacement battalion "Der Führer". In 1941 he became battalion commander of a unit of the 6th SS Mountain Division "North" . Shortly afterwards he was transferred to the SS standard "Westland" , where he took over the leadership of a company. This was followed on December 12, 1940, the transfer to III. Battalion of the 11th SS Volunteer Panzer Grenadier Division "Nordland" .

By order of Adolf Hitler in August 1942, the Estonia Legion, later the Estonian Volunteer Brigade, was set up in September 1942. Franz Augsberger took command of the brigade on October 20, 1942. In January 1944 the brigade was expanded to divisional strength and was designated the 20th Estonian SS Volunteer Division, or from May 1944 20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (Estonian No. 1) . Along with the reclassification to division, he was promoted to SS-Oberführer on January 30, 1944 and to SS-Brigadführer and Major General of the Waffen-SS on June 21, 1944 .

January 1945 the division was involved in the most severe fighting in the Opole area . When Augsberger and his adjutant led one of the three combat groups that tried to break out of the Opole fortress in March 1945, he fell near Zeiselwitz in the Neustadt / Silesia area .

Awards

• Iron Cross (1939) 2nd class on July 4, 1941
• Finnish Freedom Cross III. Class on December 1, 1941
• Infantry Assault Badge January 15, 1942
• German cross in gold on May 30, 1942
• Medal Winter Battle in the East 1941/42 on July 20, 1942
• Iron Cross (1939) 1st Class on September 15, 1942
• Finnish Freedom Cross 2nd class on January 30, 1943
• Mentioned in the Wehrmacht report on March 9, 1944
• Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on March 8, 1945
• Honorary sheet clasp of the Army on April 19, 1945

See also

• List of SS brigade leaders

literature

• Wolfgang Graf: Austrian SS generals. Himmler's reliable vassals , Hermagoras-Verlag, Klagenfurt / Ljubljana / Vienna 2012, ISBN 978-3-7086-0578-4 .
• Beevor, Antony : Berlin: Downfall 1945 , 2003.
• Janusz Piekalkiewic: The Second World War , 1987.
• Guido Knopp : Die SS, Goldmann Verlag 2003 , ISBN 3-442-15252-6 .
• The 11th SS-Freiwilligen-Panzer-Grenadier-Division "Nordland" , Michaelis-Verlag, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-930849-29-1 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Wolfgang Graf: Austrian SS Generals. Himmler's reliable vassals , Klagenfurt / Ljubljana / Vienna 2012, p. 411f.
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Veit Scherzer : Knight's Cross bearers 1939–1945. The holders of the Iron Cross of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm and armed forces allied with Germany according to the documents of the Federal Archives. 2nd Edition. Scherzers Militaer-Verlag, Ranis / Jena 2007, ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2 , p. 196.