Michael Skubl

From right: Eugeniusz Hinterhoff (Polish press correspondent), Michael Skubl and former King of England, Edward VIII Windsor , after leaving the Westbahnhof in Vienna (December 1936)

Michael Skubl (born September 27, 1877 in Bleiburg , Carinthia ; † February 24, 1964 in Vienna ) was an Austrian police officer and politician ( VF ).

Between 1929 and 1933 he worked as the central inspector of the Vienna Security Guard , the uniformed police, and as police chief he was head of the Vienna Federal Police Directorate from 1934 to 1938 .
From March 20, 1937 to March 13, 1938, Skubl was also State Secretary in the Federal Chancellery for security affairs and security in the Schuschnigg and Seyß-Inquart governments ( Cabinet III until February 16, 1938 , March IV until March 11 and Seyss-Inquart cabinet until March 13th ).

Education

Skubl studied at the University of Vienna Jus and was aged gentleman in 1901 founded the Round Table German Carinthian called Students in Vienna, which since 1919 Kärntnerland team of Viennese universities. In 1921 Skubl wrote the color song for this student union.

Service in the corporate state

Michael Skubl - he was then police vice-president - was known when he greeted the Nazi politicians Hans Frank , Hanns Kerrl and Roland Freisler , who had come to a legal conference, on March 13, 1933 at Vienna Airport with the words that their visit “ not particularly welcome ”.

The appointment of Skubl as police president took place during the dictatorial corporate state in October 1934 by Federal Chancellor Schuschnigg. Skubl's predecessor, Eugen Seydel , who was only appointed in 1933, was retired as a scapegoat for the inadequate police defensive measures against the National Socialist July coup , which was associated with the murder of Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss .

After Hitler's threats at their meeting on February 12, 1938 at the Berghof ( Obersalzberg ) and the Berchtesgaden Agreement , Schuschnigg had to transfer the office of interior minister with security to Arthur Seyß-Inquart on February 15. "However, State Secretary Skubl," as the German Chargé d'Affaires reported to Berlin on February 17, "was retained in his previous role as head of security and at the same time appointed General Inspector for the entire executive, including the gendarmerie ." Skubl to "Schuschnigg's close following".

Witness to the Nazi takeover of power

After of Hermann Goering ultimatum demanded resignation of Schuschnigg on the afternoon of March 11, 1938 Skubl was among those politicians, which President Wilhelm Miklas before 16 clock almost the chancellorship antrug. But Skubl refused, as before in a conversation with Schuschnigg. He feared that the appointment of a well-known Nazi opponent would provoke Hitler to invade immediately. Miklas finally appointed Skubl that same night as State Secretary for Security in the Seyss-Inquart government.

On March 12, the Reichsführer SS and chief of the German police, Heinrich Himmler , landed at Vienna Airport Aspern at 4:30 a.m. and was received there by Skubl and Ernst Kaltenbrunner , among others . Among Himmler's companions was August Meyszner , a former Austrian police officer who had fled to Germany because of his involvement in the Nazi July coup.

According to him, the return of Meyszner prompted Skubl to submit his resignation to Seyss-Inquart on March 13, 1938 (already urged by Himmler) and to apply for retirement as police chief. As Skubl later explained to the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg , Seyß-Inquart had expressed his confidence in him, but approved his departure.

In his memorandum to the Nuremberg Court of Justice, Seyss-Inquart claimed that he had resisted requests to initiate proceedings against Skubl or at least to cancel his pension and intervened with Himmler to only impose a 25 percent pension reduction on Skubl. Skubl's successor as State Secretary was Ernst Kaltenbrunner on March 13, 1938; he was present when the government passed the Anschlussgesetz (Federal Constitutional Act on the reunification of Austria with the German Reich), which came into force immediately.

Michael Skubl was arrested in his official apartment. On May 24, 1938, the Gestapo took him to Kassel and assigned him to this city as a forced residency; he was only able to return to Vienna in 1946.

The German Foreign Office State Secretary Ernst von Weizsäcker noted on May 16, 1938 that it was "understandable that the harsh methods of oppression that the previous regime used against the national population had to trigger a reaction after the upheaval." Therefore, leading corporate state officials like State Secretary Skubl has been arrested. When Weizsäcker spoke to Reinhard Heydrich , the head of the security police, on July 5, 1938 , about “the handling of arrests pending in Austria”, he learned that Skubl was free.

In 1947, Skubl appeared as a witness in the high treason trial against Guido Schmidt before the Vienna People's Court .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.l-kaernten.at/eigenesweb13/geschichte.htm  ( page no longer available , search in web archives ).
2. ↑ see: Karl Kraus in The Third Walpurgis Night ( http://hink66.de/klassiker/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Kraus_Dritte_WalpurgisnachtA5v2.pdf on page 283), or Michael E. Holzmann: Die Österreichische SA , page 50.
3. ^ Documentation archive of the Austrian resistance (ed.): "Anschluss" 1938. A documentation , Österreichischer Bundesverlag, Vienna 1988, ISBN 3-215-06824-9 , p. 157 f.
4. ^ Rainer Mayerhofer: Österreichs Weg zum Anschluss 1938 ( Memento of November 7, 2002 in the Internet Archive ), Wiener Zeitung online, May 25, 1998.
5. ↑ Engelbert Steinwender: From the city guard to the security guard. Vienna police stations and their time , Volume 2: Ständestaat, Greater German Reich, Occupation , Weishaupt Verlag, Graz 1992, ISBN 3-90031-085-8 , p. 258.
6. ^ Federal Law Gazette for the Federal State of Austria, year 1938, p. 259, digitized online .
7. ↑ Testimony before the International Military Court in Nuremberg , June 13, 1946, Minutes p. 217 f .; the Tribunal questioned him on the role of the Defendant Seyss-Inquart in March 1938.
8. ^ Documentation archive of the Austrian resistance (ed.): "Anschluss" 1938. A documentation , Österreichischer Bundesverlag, Vienna 1988, ISBN 3-215-06824-9 , pp. 529, 531.
9. ^ Documentation archive of the Austrian resistance (ed.): "Anschluss" 1938. A documentation , Österreichischer Bundesverlag, Vienna 1988, ISBN 3-215-06824-9 , p. 250.