Josef Plakolm

Josef Plakolm (black uniform) on tour of Mauthausen concentration camp , with Heinrich Himmler and other SS officers, June 1941.

Josef Plakolm (born July 22, 1889 in Gallneukirchen , † December 24, 1956 ) was an Austrian lawyer and police chief in Linz .

Life

Plakolm was the son of an innkeeper. After filed Matura he graduated from in 1909 to study law at the University of Graz and received his doctorate in 1914 at the University of Innsbruck for Doctor of Law . As a soldier in the Austro-Hungarian Army , he took part continuously in World War I from 1914 and was dismissed from the army with the rank of First Lieutenant in the reserve after the end of the war, awarded the Silver Medal for Bravery . He then trained as a lawyer and from 1923 worked as a resident lawyer in Linz.

Plakolm belonged to the Greater German People's Party until 1930 and to the NSDAP from 1932 (membership number 1.516.641). In July 1936 he became a member of the SS (membership number 308.219), where he rose to SS-Oberführer in November 1944 . He was also a Gaurerechtsberater, Gauführer of the NS-Rechtswahrerbund and worked for the Austrian observer .

Immediately after the annexation of Austria , he was appointed police chief in Linz in mid-March 1938 and remained in this position until the end of the war in May 1945. He was also the local air raid chief. In addition, he remained Gaufführer of the NS-Rechtswahrerbund and was temporarily head of the Gaurechtsamt and president of the local bar association. He was involved in admissions to concentration camps and Aryanizations .

After the end of the Second World War , he was in custody in Glasenbach for three years from June 1, 1945 . Due to a mental illness he was incapacitated and admitted to the Niedernhart sanatorium. Before a people's court he was sentenced to three years in prison for denunciation and high treason in September 1948 . There was insufficient evidence regarding enrichment in Jewish property and involvement in murders; the conviction was based on denunciations and Nazi functionary activities. Despite protests against the verdict by a Nazi victims' association, the proceedings were not reopened. Plakolm lived in Salzburg from 1951 .

literature

• Wolfgang Graf: Austrian SS generals. Himmler's reliable vassals , Hermagoras-Verlag, Klagenfurt / Ljubljana / Vienna 2012, ISBN 978-3-7086-0578-4 .
• Daniela Ellmauer, Michael John, Regnia Thumser: 'Aryanizations', confiscated assets, provisions and compensation in Upper Austria. Publication by the Austrian Commission of Historians, Volume 17/1, Oldenbourg Verlag, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-7029-0521-9 .