Hubert Klausner

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Hubert Klausner

Hubert Klausner (born November 1, 1892 in Raibl im Kanaltal ; † February 12, 1939 in Vienna ) was an Austrian officer and politician ( NSDAP - Hitler Movement and NSDAP ). He was NSDAP Gauleiter and, for a short time, Minister of the Interior and Culture in the "Land of Austria" under Reich Governor Seyß-Inquart , nominal Governor of Carinthia and a member of the Reichstag .

Life

The son of an Imperial and Royal Finance Guard attended grammar school in Villach, where he belonged to the Pennäler Corporation "Arminia" from 1909, and in 1912 passed his Matura . He then volunteered as a one-year volunteer and graduated from reserve officers school in 1913. He then served in the First World War as a lieutenant in Galicia , where he was seriously wounded in 1915, and then as a first lieutenant on the Italian front . Since his right hand remained paralyzed, he was withdrawn from the fighting in 1916, assigned to the headquarters of the wounded collection center in Klagenfurt and then entrusted with the management of the Austro-Hungarian convalescent house in Trento until the end of the war . Between 1919 and 1920 he took part in the Carinthian defensive battle as a commander of the Volkswehr battalion of the "Achterjäger" (a successor to the kuk Feldjäger battalion No. 8 ) and in 1920 he joined the Austrian army , where he was soon promoted to captain . He found his party-political home in the Greater German People's Party , but earlier than the majority of its members, Klausner joined the Austrian National Socialist Party in 1922 , from which he resigned in 1927 because of the split in the Austrian groups. In 1930 he was promoted to major - his last active military rank in the Austrian army, which in 1933 punished him for being politically punished with the “waiting fee” - a reduced salary - and the exclusion from any promotion.

In February 1931, Klausner rejoined the NSDAP (membership number 440.737), which gained influence in Carinthia in 1931/32 in municipal and regional elections. As one of the first officers of the Austrian Armed Forces in the NSDAP, he made a name for himself as a party propagandist who enjoyed a lot of personal sympathy in army circles, but as a Klagenfurt municipal council he stayed in the background and was by no means the faction engine that he was later glorified as Nor was he the " Andreas Hofer " of the Carinthian defensive struggle, to which the party advertisement stylized him.

With Klausner's appointment as deputy Gauleiter of the NSDAP of Carinthia in January 1933, however, his now steep rise began, which only experienced a brief interruption. He became a local officer of the Gauleitung, in March also took over the district leadership of Klagenfurt-Stadt and Klagenfurt-Land, and two months later, in May 1933, he was already Gauleiter and headed the NSDAP in Carinthia, but Moritz resigned after the party was banned Czeitschner appeared in public as Gauleiter under the protection of his parliamentary immunity . Nevertheless, Klausner was imprisoned several times during the time of the corporate state in Austria - in January 1935, February 1936 and 1937 - for a few months after he had already been one of the 252 Carinthian Nazi functionaries arrested in June 1933, who was subsequently the Nazi regime -Terrors had been arrested. Although he was deposed as Gauleiter of Carinthia on October 8, 1936 at the instigation of the old and now new Austrian NSDAP regional leader Josef Leopold , who was amnestied on July 23, 1936 and released from Austrian custody at a Munich meeting of the Austrian Gauleiter, but all of them Measures did not prevent him from continuing to work for the Nazi movement and from making his house in Latschach am Faaker See the headquarters of the illegal Gauleitung, which also bore fruit: on February 21, 1938, Hitler quoted the Austrian NSDAP regional leader Leopold, who, after Klausner's disempowerment, also released Friedrich Rainer and Odilo Globočnik from their positions, to Berlin, where he dragged him to crazy orders and irresponsible behavior and asked him to resign from all party functions and to leave Austria, while Hubert Klausner handed over the leadership of the Austrian NSDAP . It was Klausner, who announced the takeover of power in Austria by the NSDAP in a radio address on March 12, 1938 at 1:00 p.m. and issued the slogan “one people, one empire”, now supplemented by “one leader” his speech was chanted everywhere. Along with Ernst Kaltenbrunner he received, Rainer and Globočnik the same day the Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler at the Vienna airport as a first significant Nazi official from Germany and joined the SS with the rank of (SS no. 292772) SS Oberfuhrer a , where after only six months he was promoted to SS-Brigadführer .

After the annexation to the German Reich , Klausner was appointed minister for political decision-making in the first National Socialist cabinet by Arthur Seyß-Inquart on March 13, 1938 and on May 22 of the same year as deputy to Reich commissioner Josef Bürckel and at the same time as Austrian minister of interior and culture . In April there was the consideration of making Klausner Gauleiter of a large southern Gau to be built consisting of Carinthia and Styria. At the beginning of May Klausner's name also appeared in the discussions about the post of Gauleiter of Vienna, because his character qualities “could be in that The best way to balance and smooth Vienna that is otherwise so torn, ”but Klausner immediately refused, he didn't like the Viennese pavement, he wanted to go back to Carinthia.

Klausner's request was only partially answered: Although he was nominally appointed Governor of Carinthia and, with the Fiihrer's resolution of May 23, 1938, was also given the office of Gauleiter of Carinthia, whereby the swearing-in of the seven Austrian Gauleiter was regarded as a special honor took place on July 24th in the Great Wappensaal of the Klagenfurt Landhaus , but he still had to stay in Vienna as Minister of the Interior and Culture. In Carinthia remained Franz Kutschera be "with the leadership of the district entrusted" deputy who was as such also always called Gauleiter, while in the field of public administration continues to since 12 March 1938 acting as "acting head of the provincial team," Wladimir von Pawlowski now as "entrusted with the management of the state governance" is named. After the Reichstag elections of April 10, 1938 Klausner was sitting as a deputy for the country Austria in Nazi Reichstag .

Hubert Klausner died suddenly on February 12, 1939 in Vienna. Despite Klausner's outstanding position, the news of his death from Bürckel's press office on the same day was in a few sparse words: “Gauleiter Minister Klausner died of a stroke this morning in his Vienna apartment ”. Then, however, Gauleiter Bürckel ordered in a broadcast to the Gaupresseamtsleiter that "of course ... the news of the passing of Gauleiter Minister Klausner should be published in all newspapers". Adolf Hitler also appeared at his state funeral in Klagenfurt with numerous Nazi leaders such as SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich , the general of the police and head of the Reich Security Main Office, or the deputy Führer, Rudolf Hess, and gave the commemorative speech. The actual burial did not take place in Klagenfurt, however. In the Gau capital, however, the Völkermarkter Ring was renamed Hubert-Klausner-Ring.

The sudden death of Klausner gave rise to all kinds of rumors and speculations and led to the thesis that he did not die of natural causes. Citing statements from Klausner's wife, his former adjutant, the well-known and highly respected plant sociologist Erwin Aichinger, wrote of a poisoning by the SS initiated by Bürckel, because Bürckel had been commissioned to “liquidate the traditional party structures in Austria and those tending towards separatism To align the party strictly uniformly with the Reich ”, because“ of all Austrians no one was more disappointed with the Anschluss than some of the leading National Socialists ”.

literature

  • Alfred Elste: Carinthia's brown elite. Hermagoras / Mohorjeva, Klagenfurt, Ljubljana, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-85013-476-8 .
  • Alfred Elste, Dirk Hänisch, Anton Pelinka: On the way to power. Contributions to the NSDAP in Carinthia from 1918–1938. (= Comparative history of society and the history of political ideas in modern times. Volume 8). Braumüller, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-7003-1153-2 .
  • Wolfgang Graf: Austrian SS generals. Himmler's reliable vassals. Hermagoras-Verlag, Klagenfurt / Ljubljana / Vienna 2012, ISBN 978-3-7086-0578-4 .
  • Bruce F. Pauley: The Road to National Socialism. Origins and development in Austria. Austrian Bundesverlag, Vienna 1988, ISBN 3-215-06875-3 .
  • August Walzl: "As the first district ...". Developments and structures of National Socialism in Carinthia . Carinthia University Press, Klagenfurt 1992, ISBN 3-85378-388-0 .
  • Maurice Williams: Gau, Volk and Reich. Friedrich Rainer and the Austrian National Socialism. A political biography based on personal reports. (= Archive for patriotic history and topography. Volume 90). German adaptation by Ulrich Burz and Claudia Fräss-Ehrfeld. Verlag des Geschichtsverein für Kärnten, Klagenfurt 2005, ISBN 3-85454-106-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Villacher Arminen 1905–1960 , o. O., o. J., p. 27, after Alfred Elste: Kärntens brown elite . Hermagoras, Klagenfurt 1997, p. 75.
  2. ^ Alfred Elste: Carinthia's brown elite. Pp. 76, 78f.
  3. ↑ Maurice Williams: Gau, Volk and Reich. Friedrich Rainer and the Austrian National Socialism. (= Archive for patriotic history and topography. Volume 90). German by Ulrich Burz and Claudia Fräss-Ehrfeld. Verlag des Geschichtsverein für Kärnten, Klagenfurt 2005, p. 62.
  4. ↑ Alfred Elste, Dirk Hänisch, Anton Pelinka: On the way to power. Contributions to the NSDAP in Carinthia from 1918–1938. Braumüller, Vienna 1997, p. 296 ff.
  5. ↑ Maurice Williams, p. 82.
  6. ↑ Maurice Williams, p. 92.
  7. ↑ Maurice Wiliams, p. 101.
  8. ↑ Christian Opdenhoff to Rudolf Heß's staff on May 10, 1938, quoted from August Walzl: "As first district ...". P. 86 and 43.
    Opdenhoff was     Friedrich Rainer's deputy in Division VIII of Bürckel's staff, who was sent to Vienna by Martin Bormann , responsible for party organization and personnel issues.
  9. ^ Kärntner Landesarchiv, files of the Landeshauptmannschaft / Reichsstatthalterei, Chancellery A3053 / 2344, quoted from August Walzl: "As first district ...". P. 94 and 342.
  10. ↑ NS Gauakte, Press Office Bürckel, February 12, 1923 quoted by Alfred Elste: Carinthia brown elite . Hermagoras, Klagenfurt 1997, p. 71.
  11. ^ Alfred Elste: Carinthia's brown elite. P. 70.
  12. ↑ August Walzl: "As the first district ...". P. 313.
  13. ^ Alfred Elste: Carinthia's brown elite. P. 71f.
  14. ^ Gerhard Jagschitz : The Austrian National Socialists. In: Gerald Stourzh, Birgitta Zaar (ed.): Austria, Germany and the Powers. International and Austrian aspects of the “Anschluss” from March 1938 (= publications of the Commission for the History of Austria . Volume 16). Vienna 1990, p. 261; quoted from Alfred Elste: Carinthia's brown elite. P. 71 f.
  15. ↑ Bruce F. Pauley: The way in the National Socialism. Origins and development in Austria. Austrian Bundesverlag, Vienna 1988, p. 210, quoted from Alfred Elste: Carinthia's brown elite. P. 74.
personal data
SURNAME Klausner, Hubert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian politician (NSDAP), MdR, Gauleiter and governor of Carinthia
DATE OF BIRTH November 1, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Raibl , Canal Valley
DATE OF DEATH February 12, 1939
Place of death Vienna