Guido Schmidt

The title of this article is ambiguous. Further meanings are listed under Guido Schmidt (disambiguation) .

Guido Schmidt with Galeazzo Ciano and Kurt Schuschnigg (from left to right)

Guido Schmidt (born January 15, 1901 in Bludenz , † December 5, 1957 in Vienna ) was an Austrian diplomat and politician.

After graduating from high school at Stella Matutina in Feldkirch (where he met the later Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg ), he enrolled in law and political science at the University of Vienna . Further study visits were the universities in Berlin and Bologna. In 1924 he received his doctorate in law in Vienna. In 1925 he entered the diplomatic service and in 1927 was brought in by Federal Chancellor Ignaz Seipel to the office of Federal President Wilhelm Miklas . A year later he was appointed vice director of the cabinet. He married Maria Chiari on September 14, 1931 and they had three children, including Guido Schmidt-Chiari .

After the conclusion of the July Agreement , in which Schmidt played a key role, he became State Secretary for Foreign Affairs on July 11, 1936, under Federal Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg . In addition to Edmund Glaise von Horstenau , Schmidt was the National Socialists' second shop steward in the Austrian government. On February 12, 1938, he was promoted to Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs in connection with the Berchtesgaden Agreement , but was dismissed from Arthur Seyss-Inquart on March 11, 1938 during the Anschluss . Hermann Göring appointed his personal friend Schmidt on July 1, 1938 director of the Hermann Göring works in Linz .

Eight months after the end of the war, in December 1945, Schmidt was arrested and charged with high treason. On June 12, 1947, the trial before the Vienna People's Court ended with an acquittal. Since, according to the court ruling, the suspicion of high treason was not sufficiently refuted, Schmidt was not awarded any compensation. However , documents published by the British Element in Baden-Baden in 1950 reinforced the suspicion that Schmidt had been working towards the dismissal of the head of the Austrian General Staff Alfred Jansa at the beginning of 1938 , which had significantly prevented Austria's military defense against the Anschluss. However, this did not lead to a new trial.

In the mid-1950s he became General Director of the Austrian-American Rubber Works Semperit AG . Guido Schmidt died on December 5, 1957 in Vienna. Schmidt had been a member of the KaV Norica Vienna Catholic student association since 1920 , from which he left after 1945.

literature

• Jürgen Nautz:  Schmidt, Guido. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 23, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-428-11204-3 , p. 190 ( digitized version ).
• Oesterreichs Papen , Der Spiegel 25/1947 (on the Schmidt trial)
• The treason trial against Dr. Guido Schmidt before the Vienna People's Court - The court minutes with the testimony, unpublished documents, all secret letters and secret files., Printed and published by the Austrian State Printing Office, 1947

Web links

Commons : Guido Schmidt  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Entry on Guido Schmidt in the Austria Forum  (in the AEIOU Austria Lexicon )
• Short biography Vorarlberg Chronicle
• Guido Schmidt on the website of the Austrian Parliament
• Newspaper article about Guido Schmidt in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Field Marshal Lieutenant Jansa: From my life , Chapter: Head of d. Section III in the Federal Ministry for State Defense and Chief of the General Staff for Armed Power 1.VI.1935 - 16.II.1938 ( online , diemorgengab.at)