Robert Knapp (SS member)

Robert Knapp (born October 1, 1885 in Budweis , † February 21, 1954 in Regensburg ) was an Austrian officer, most recently in the rank of SS brigade leader .

Life

During his school days, the factory owner's son switched to the military high school Mährisch-Weißkirchen and then the cavalry school, which is also located on site. As a career officer he was from 1905 in the rank of lieutenant in a hussar regiment . Since 1908 he was married to Ferdinanda Maria Theresia, Countess von und zu Westerholt and Gysenberg (1887-1954), the owner of Freyenthurn Castle . Knapp was exempted from the army and professionally practiced equestrian sport, according to his own statements he should have won exactly 128 prizes from 1904 to 1914. He was also active in automobile racing.

With the rank of first lieutenant and captain of the Austro-Hungarian Army , he took part continuously in the First World War and received several awards. As early as 1911 he had acquired the Retzhof Castle estate in the Leibnitz district , which he managed and which his family owned until 1945. Knapp joined the SS in 1931 (SS no.36.350) and the NSDAP ( membership number 782.132) in 1932 . For the SS he built up the motorcycle squadron in Styria and from 1932 headed SS-Standarte 38. Due to internal quarrels, he resigned from the SS. For the party acted in 1932 as a district leader of Leibnitz .

After the July coup in 1934 he was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison, as well as confiscation of property and a fine (40,000 schillings). He was given amnesty as part of the July 1936 Agreement . After his release from prison, he lived in the German Reich from October 1936 and was looked after by the NSDAP's refugee agency. He was able to re-join the SS as an old fighter , rose steadily within this Nazi organization and worked full-time for the SS. From 1938 he was staff leader of Section II with headquarters in Dresden and from 1940 leader of SS Section XXXVII in Reichenberg . From September 1942 he was "police officer for the order and security police at the Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter in the Sudetengau ". The background was a conflict between Konrad Henlein and Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler regarding the police in the Sudetenland . Knapp was forced to vacate his post in the summer of 1943 after investigating a dispute between Henlein and his deputy Richard Donnevert . After a stay at a spa in Bad Tölz , he was initially deferred by the SS service, but at the beginning of October 1943 he was promoted to SS brigade leader. From September 1944 he led SS Section II in Dresden.

literature

• Wolfgang Graf: Austrian SS generals. Himmler's reliable vassals , Hermagoras-Verlag, Klagenfurt / Ljubljana / Vienna 2012, ISBN 978-3-7086-0578-4 , p. 341 ff.
• Hans Schafranek : Biographies of Styrian Nazi Actors. In: Herbert Blatnik, Hans Schafranek (Ed.): From the NS ban to the "Anschluss". Styrian National Socialists 1933–1938. Czernin Verlag, Vienna 2015, ISBN 978-3-7076-0554-9 , pp. 485-487 (keyword: KNAPP, Robert ).