Otto Steinhäusl

Otto Steinhäusl (born March 10, 1879 in Budweis , Böhmen , † June 20, 1940 in Vienna ) was an Austrian police officer and SS leader who was police president of Vienna at the time of National Socialism .

Life

Steinhäusl was the son of an imperial and royal lieutenant auditor. He attended high school in Salzburg and Klagenfurt . From 1898, he studied Jus at the University of Vienna and joined the academic fraternity Moldavia at. In 1902/03 he served with the 17th Infantry Regiment as a one-year volunteer . He received his doctorate in law in 1905 . In 1906/07 he completed the judicial year , after which he was a concept intern at the Vienna Police Department. In 1911 he was transferred to Mährisch-Ostrau and set up the security service there. For his contribution to the exposure of Colonel Redl , he received the Golden Cross of Merit .

He returned to Vienna in 1913 and was promoted to police commissioner in 1915. During the First World War he worked in the registry office of counterintelligence in Austria-Hungary . In 1919 he was promoted to chief police officer and in 1921 to the police council. In 1922 he became provisional head of the Salzburg Federal Police Directorate, in 1931 he was appointed to the Vienna Police Headquarters, and from 1932 he was head of the security office. From 1933 he headed the criminal police license group.

Adjusted for Greater German, he was not openly committed to the NSDAP . However, he knew of the planned July coup and was arrested after its suppression in 1934 and sentenced on December 20, 1935 to seven years in heavy dungeon for neglect of official duties . As early as 1936 he was released due to the July Agreement .

Steinhäusl was accepted into the SS (SS no. 292.773) as standard leader after the " Anschluss of Austria " and in July 1938 achieved the rank of SS-Oberführer . One day before the "Anschluss of Austria", he was appointed as the successor of the deposed Michael Skubl provisional police chief of Vienna on the initiative of Kaltenbrunner , although he had no direct authority over the criminal police and the Gestapo . In April 1938 Steinhäusl also succeeded Skubl as President of the International Criminal Police Commission . On January 18, 1940, he was officially appointed police chief. After a long absence from work due to illness, he died of cancer on June 20, 1940.

literature

• Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Sub-Volume 5: R – S. Winter, Heidelberg 2002, ISBN 3-8253-1256-9 , pp. 502-503.
• Wolfgang Graf: Austrian SS generals. Himmler's reliable vassals , Hermagoras-Verlag, Klagenfurt / Ljubljana / Vienna 2012, ISBN 978-3-7086-0578-4 .
• F. Weisz:  Steinhäusl Otto. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 13, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2007–2010, ISBN 978-3-7001-6963-5 , p. 184.

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c d e} Wolfgang Graf: Austrian SS Generals. Himmler's reliable vassals , Hermagoras-Verlag, Klagenfurt / Ljubljana / Vienna 2012, p. 321f
2. ^ Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I Politicians, Part 5: R – S. Heidelberg 2002, p. 502.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Edmund Glaise von Horstenau, Peter Broucek (Ed.): A General in the Twilight: The Memories of Edmund Glaises von Horstenau , Volume 3, Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 1983, ISBN 3-205-08743-7 , p. 97.
4. ↑ Mathieu Deflem: Policing World Society. Historical Foundations of International Police Cooperation . Oxford UP, Oxford 2002, p. 236.