Soucek-Rössner conspiracy
The Soucek-Rössner conspiracy was the first prominent case of National Socialist re-engagement in Austria after the Second World War . Around the Graz merchant Theodor Soucek and the former Nazi functionary Hugo Rössner from Vienna, an underground organization had formed in the first post-war years, which provided escape assistance for National Socialists and was financed through smuggling and smuggling. The organization was broken up in November 1947 and those responsible in Graz were brought before the People's Court .
background
In late autumn 1946, a meeting took place in a hut in the Upper Austrian Alps, at which the establishment of an "order" was discussed, which was supposed to carry on the ideology of National Socialism . In attendance were Rössner - former NSDAP trainer in Vienna and Werewolf representative -, the former Waffen SS officer Friedrich Schiller and former Hitler Youth members Johann Balzer and Amon Göth (not to be confused with the concentration camp commandant of the same name ) . In June 1947 a larger meeting took place in Salzburg, at which the details of the establishment of the order were discussed. Connections to Styria and other federal states as well as to South Tyrol already existed. Saccharin was smuggled into Austria from Switzerland and sold on the black market.
Independently of this, the Graz metal goods dealer and former Waffen SS officer Theodor Soucek had set up a similar group, which he had designed as an armed combat force that was to wage a guerrilla war in the event of a war between the Soviet Union and the Western powers . To finance his activities, Soucek had his people break into the labor office in Graz, where they stole valuable equipment and identification documents that were to be sold and given to friends of opinion. Among other things, Soucek's group provided the former Styrian Gauleiter Siegfried Uiberreither with a false ID and planned the liberation of prisoners from the Wolfsberg camp .
Rivalries between Soucek and Rössner, who could not agree on who should act as the future “leader”, led to Rössner becoming active in the US and Soucek in the British occupation zone , and a joint organization was only rudimentary.
Arrests
After months of surveillance, those responsible were arrested in early November 1947. The blind doctor Franz Klinger was also involved in Soucek's organization. A total of over 200 people were arrested in connection with this case of National Socialist re-employment; among them the publisher Leopold Stocker , who was planning to found a new political party. The ÖVP and SPÖ , Major Ernst Strachwitz and Captain Otto Rösch , were also arrested. Strachwitz was accused of having at least tolerated neo-Nazi activities as the head of the “homecoming aid and care center” in Graz; Rösch was identified by several witnesses as the head of the Soucek Group's intelligence service. A suitcase with forged identification papers and stamps was found in his possession. The proceedings against Strachwitz were discontinued, and Rösch was acquitted in 1949 for lack of evidence.
Trial and judgments
In January 1948, the two preliminary proceedings against the Soucek and Rössner groups were brought together at the People's Court ; on March 31, the trial against Soucek, Rössner, Klinger, Göth, Schiller and Anton Sehnert, a South Tyrolean smuggler, began. The defendants attempted to give their activities a humanitarian touch; they only helped the politically persecuted. The verdict was announced on May 15, 1948: Soucek, Rössner and Göth were sentenced to death by hanging , Klinger to 20 years imprisonment, Sehnert to 18 and Schiller to ten years imprisonment . In the more than 500 pages of reasons for the judgment, the judges named Soucek a “political fanatic who is not choosy in the choice of his means, believes in the implementation of his goals, uses the most wicked methods and for this reason is not only very serious in his personality is taking, but realizing a particular complex of risks. ”With Klinger, who stubbornly denied all accusations, his complete blindness came into play as a mitigating factor. Rössner, who made a rather unworldly impression in court, made a partial confession.
Federal President Karl Renner lifted the death penalty in June 1949 in order not to turn the convicts into martyrs of the National Socialist cause, Soucek's sentence was converted to life imprisonment, Rössner's 20 years, Göth's 15 years. On August 22, 1952, five of the convicts were pardoned and released (Klinger had already been released in February 1951). Theodor Soucek continued to be active in the neo-Nazi spectrum in the years that followed.
literature
- Perry Biddiscombe: The Last Nazis: SS Werewolf Guerrilla Resistance in Europe 1944-1947 . Tempus Publishing, London 2004 ISBN 978-0-7524-2967-0
- Volker Koop : Himmler's last line-up: the Nazi organization Werwolf . Böhlau Verlag, Vienna-Cologne-Weimar 2008 ISBN 978-3-412-20191-3
- Maria Messner: Denazification between political claims, party competition and the Cold War: the example of the SPÖ . Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 2005 ISBN 978-3-486-57815-7
- Martin F. Polaschek : On behalf of the Republic of Austria! The People's Courts in Styria 1945 to 1955 (= publications of the Styrian Provincial Archives, vol. 23). Graz 1998 ISBN 3-901938-01-X