Walter Schimana

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Walter Schimana (born March 12, 1898 in Troppau , Schulring 1, as Walther Otto Schimana; † September 12, 1948 in Salzburg ) was an Austrian SS group leader , lieutenant general of the Waffen SS and police as well as higher SS and police leader (HSSPF) in Greece and Vienna.

Life

Schimana was the son of the editor of the newspaper Alldeutsche Korrespondenz Anton Schimana (born Aug 21, 1868 in Chräntschowitz No. 6; † Aug 11, 1910 in Vienna ). In 1915, after attending school, he went to a cadet school in Prague . In the First World War he took part in the final phase from September 1918 to December 1918 as a soldier in the Austro-Hungarian Army . After the end of the war, he made up his Matura and attended a one-year course at the commercial school in Vienna. He also belonged to several volunteer corps and was u. a. involved in fighting in the Baltic States . He had lived in Germany since 1921 and earned his living with jobs in an antiquarian bookshop and a bank. In November 1923 he took part in the Hitler putsch , but did not become a bearer of the so-called " Blood Order ". He joined the SA and NSDAP in 1926 ( membership number 49.042) and in 1932 was entrusted with various functions as a full-time SA leader. He married in 1926 and had two children.

With the rank of major, he entered the service of the regulatory police in 1935 . After the annexation of Austria in March 1938, he was involved in setting up the motorized gendarmerie. In August 1939 he switched from the SA to the SS (SS-No. 337.753), into which he was accepted as Standartenführer. This was followed by a deployment in the SS main department in District 11 until mid-February 1941. He was also commander of the Suhl Gendarmerie School from 1940 and of the Deggingen Gendarmerie School from November 1940 to September 1941. From July 1942 to October 1944 he was on the personal staff of Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler .

Use of the Schimana combat group in the Soviet Union; Soldiers / law enforcement officers and civilians marching in a field, June 21, 1943

After the beginning of the German-Soviet War he was SSPF “ Saratow ” from September 1941 to the end of November 1941 and then SSPF at the HSSPF Russia-Mitte until July 1942 and from January to July 1942 commander of the police regiment Mitte. There, Schimana was responsible for the destruction of 103 villages and the deaths of 4,018 people. In these functions, Schimana was largely responsible for the murder of thousands of partisans and civilians. From July 1942 he was SSPF White Ruthenia in representation and at the same time site commander of the Waffen SS in Minsk.

After the French resistance bombed facilities of the German occupation forces in Marseille , Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler commanded Kurt Daluege and Schimana, chief of the regulatory police, there in early January 1943 . Schimana was announced to the HSSPF Carl Oberg as the new commander of the police in France. Schimana's secondment was based on his "experience" in partisan combat . Himmler's intention was to liquidate Marseilles underground district as a punitive action and to send around 100,000 people from there to concentration camps . The HSSPF France Carl Oberg did not implement Himmler's demands in this way, but carried out an action on a much smaller scale in coordination with French security authorities at the end of January 1943: 20,000 residents of the Marseilles harbor district were checked and had to leave their apartments. Eventually 6,000 people were arrested, of whom more than 2,200 were sent to the Compiègne police camp . From there, 782 Jewish prisoners were deported to the Sobibor extermination camp and murdered. Schimana finally returned to the Eastern Front in the spring of 1943.

From March 1943 he was commander of the combat group “Schimana” and from July 1943 to October 1943 commander of the SS volunteer division “Galicia” . From mid-October 1943 to the end of September 1944 he acted as HSSPF Greece with headquarters in Athens and in this function was responsible for the deportation of Greek Jews as well as actions against partisans and massacres of civilians. From October 5, 1944 to May 8, 1945, Schimana was HSSPF Donau, based in Vienna and at the same time headed the SS Upper Section Danube.

After the war Schimana was used by the Allies arrested could escape briefly from prison, was again taken and committed suicide in September 1948 suicide in custody in Salzburg.

Awards

Schimana's SS and police ranks
date rank
August 1939 SS standard leader
November 1940 Police lieutenant colonel
December 1941 Police Colonel
January 1942 SS-Oberführer
September 1942 SS Brigade Leader and Major General of the Police
July 1943 SS Brigadefuhrer and Major General of the Waffen SS
April 1944 SS group leader and lieutenant general of the Waffen SS and police

literature

  • Wolfgang Graf: Austrian SS generals. Himmler's reliable vassals , Hermagoras-Verlag, Klagenfurt / Ljubljana / Vienna 2012, ISBN 978-3-7086-0578-4 .
  • Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007. ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 . (Updated 2nd edition).
  • Ruth Bettina Birn : The Higher SS and Police Leaders. Himmler's representative in the Reich and in the occupied territories. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf, 1986. ISBN 3-7700-0710-7 .
  • Mark Mazower : Greece under Hitler. Life during the German occupation 1941–1944. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 2016. ISBN 978-3-10-002507-4

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wolfgang Graf: Austrian SS Generals. Himmler's reliable vassals , Hermagoras-Verlag, Klagenfurt / Ljubljana / Vienna 2012, p. 256.
  2. ↑ Ruth Bettina Birn: The higher SS and police leaders. Himmler's representative in the Reich and in the occupied territories. , Düsseldorf 1986, p. 346.
  3. ^ Wolfgang Graf: Austrian SS Generals. Himmler's reliable vassals , Hermagoras-Verlag, Klagenfurt / Ljubljana / Vienna 2012, p. 257.
  4. ↑ See SS-Gruppenführer Walter Schimana ( Memento from January 1, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) on www.geocities.com.
  5. ^ A b Peter Longerich : Heinrich Himmler. Biography , Siedler, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-88680-859-5 , pp. 669f.
  6. ^ A b Wolfgang Graf: Austrian SS Generals. Himmler's reliable vassals , Hermagoras-Verlag, Klagenfurt / Ljubljana / Vienna 2012, p. 262 f.
  7. ^ Wolfgang Graf: Austrian SS Generals. Himmler's reliable vassals , Hermagoras-Verlag, Klagenfurt / Ljubljana / Vienna 2012, p. 262 f.
  8. ^ Wolfgang Graf: Austrian SS Generals. Himmler's reliable vassals , Hermagoras-Verlag, Klagenfurt / Ljubljana / Vienna 2012, p. 264.
  9. ^ Wolfgang Graf: Austrian SS Generals. Himmler's reliable vassals , Hermagoras-Verlag, Klagenfurt / Ljubljana / Vienna 2012, p. 408.
  10. ^ Wolfgang Graf: Austrian SS Generals. Himmler's reliable vassals , Hermagoras-Verlag, Klagenfurt / Ljubljana / Vienna 2012, p. 261 f.
personal data
SURNAME Schimana, Walter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Shimana, Walther Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian Lieutenant General of the Waffen SS as well as Higher SS and Police Leader
DATE OF BIRTH March 12, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Troppau
DATE OF DEATH September 12, 1948
Place of death Salzburg