Wilhelm Ergert

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Wilhelm Ergert (* 10. June 1895 in Vienna , † 20th June 1966 in Munich ) was an Austrian news - officer and cryptanalyst (or cryptologist ). He supposedly mastered 13 languages ​​and specialized in Slavic languages .

Life

Ergert was an officer of the kk Landwehr who had received several awards during the First World War . He experienced the end of the war on the Isonzo front , where he was taken prisoner in Italy as a result of the armistice at Villa Giusti . After returning to Austria, he was soon taken over as a captain in the Austrian armed forces.

Ergert was probably already working for the so-called evidence office during the First World War . Andreas Figl described him as one of the "old, tried and tested guards" . In the Austrian Armed Forces Ergert was assigned to the Brigade Telegraph Company (radio monitoring service), from 1929 to the Telegraph Technical School. Since 1928 he was already head of the deciphering and evaluation office in the Federal Ministry for National Defense ( deciphering department of the armed forces). During this time Ergert sat on behalf of Major General Eugen Luschinsky for the armed forces on the administrative board of Radio Verkehrs AG (RAVAG). In addition to his job as an officer, Ergert also studied history with Professor Heinrich Srbik and thus maintained contacts with German - national -minded intellectuals such as Taras Borodajkewycz .

In 1933 Ergert was promoted to major in the armed forces. In the same year Austria officially exchanged military attachés with the German Reich . However, with the assistance of Edmund Glaise-Horstenau, there was an intelligence cooperation between Ergert and the German military attaché Lieutenant General Wolfgang Muff in Vienna, for whose reporting Ergert became one of the most important sources. Probably since that time Ergert also acted for the German intelligence service, because until August 1934 he was in contact with the encryption station of the Reichswehr Ministry.

Ergert, like Maximilian de Angelis and Adolf Sinzinger, the leading organizer of the National Socialist Soldiers' Ring , belonged to the group of army officers who, because of their national German attitude, advocated a merger of Austria with the German Reich. Ergert himself increasingly rejected the policy of the Austrian government, especially rapprochement with Italy because of Mussolini's policy of Italianization . After the failure of the Pfrimer Putsch , in which his acquaintance Carl Ottmar Lamberg was significantly involved, Ergert became active for the Austrian Sturmabteilung . Together with SA leader Johannes Hardegg and others such as Ottmar Attems and Tassilo Almásy, he organized the paramilitary training of the Austrian SA. Ergert built up the radio service and acted as a news officer from 1933. During this time he kept in touch with the Munich SA leadership through Lamberg, who had fled to Munich and worked there on a committee for Nazi propaganda in Austria.

In 1934 Ergert was involved in the preparations for the so-called July coup. On July 16, 1934, Ergert took part in the meeting under the leadership of Theodor Habicht in Munich , where the final preparations for the putsch were made, as a confidante of Lieutenant Colonel Adolf Sinzinger, the chief of staff of the Vienna City Command . After these preparations, the armed forces should be alerted by the Vienna city command and occupy key positions. During the attempted coup, however, there was no alarm from the Vienna City Command in the interests of the putschists. Sinzinger and Ergert had decided - probably due to the negative development of the events - not to take part in the putsch. After the failed coup, Ergert initially remained unmolested. He did not leave for the German Reich until the end of August 1934. Here he joined the Austrian Legion and was active as a Standartenführer in the staff of SA-Obergruppenführer Hermann Reschny ; at times he led SA Brigade 3.

After the " Anschluss of Austria " in 1938, Ergert was initially taken over by the German Wehrmacht and assigned to the General Command of Wehrkreis XVII in Vienna. However, he later coincided with former superiors such as Emil Liebitzky and other intelligence officers of the ominous "Muffkommission" - named after the above. Military attaché Muff - a victim and was dismissed from active military service as a major with effect from March 31, 1939. In June 1939 Ergert became active for the defense through the mediation of Erwin Lahousen-Vivremont - his successor in cooperation with Muff . Although he was officially dismissed from the service of the Wehrmacht, he worked in the defense with the rank of major, initially in industrial counter-espionage . From 1941 to 1945, due to his special knowledge of the Czech language, he was deployed in various departments at the Abwehrstelle for the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in Prague . In 1942 he succeeded in deciphering a letter that exposed the double agent Paul Thümmel - agent of the Abwehr and the Czechoslovak intelligence service.

After the Second World War , Ergert worked as a radio and cipher specialist for the military intelligence service of the new Austrian Armed Forces and made a significant contribution to the establishment of the news group , which later became the Army Intelligence Office . In 1956 he was a leader in the technical control service in radio reconnaissance against the Soviet Army when it was possible to provide a comprehensive picture of the situation during the occupation of Hungary by Soviet troops, despite poor means. Later - at least until 1963 - Ergert was involved in telecommunications reconnaissance . In 1960 he was also a teacher of the special course in cryptology . Presumably at this time he was also a liaison officer to the German secret service and thus to the American secret service in Munich-Pullach.

In 1963 Ergert, together with the President of the Austrian Officers Association, Major General Paul Wittas, ensured that Andreas Figl , who was still almost 90 years old and wrote reports for the news group with Ergert, received a long overdue state award and thus the cryptologists' achievements were recognized accordingly.

To this day, the role of Ergert and that of the Austrian Armed Forces - a third of the putschists were members of the Armed Forces - in the 1934 coup has not been fully clarified. The documents about Ergert's activities for the armed forces are still blocked today.

Awards (as of 1933)

literature

  • Peter Broucek : Military Resistance. Studies on the Austrian state sentiment and NSA defense . Böhlau Verlag, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2008.
  • Hans Schafranek: Summer party with prize shooting. The unknown story of the Nazi putsch in July 1934. Czernin, 2006.
  • Otto J. Horak: Andreas Figl: old masters of the Austrian art of decoding and cryptographic science: life and work 1873-1967 . Verlag Trauner, Linz 2005.
  • Gudula Walterskirchen : Engelbert Dollfuss. Worker murderer or hero chancellor . Molden, Vienna 2004.
  • Hannes Stekl: Nobility and bourgeoisie in the Habsburg Monarchy, 18th to 20th century. Vienna 2004.
  • Austrian State Archives: Notices from the Austrian State Archives. Volume 47, Austrian State Printing Office, 1999.
  • Minutes of the Council of Ministers of the First Republic 1918–1938. Volume 8, Part 4, 1984.
  • Harald Irnberger: Bouquet of carnations calls Praterstern. Promedia 1983.
  • Gerhard Jagschitz , Alfred Baubin: The Putsch: The National Socialists 1934 in Austria . Editor Alfred Baubin, Verlag Styria, Graz / Vienna / Cologne 1976.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Horak 2005, p. 324.
  2. ↑ a b c d Broucek 2008, p. 294.
  3. ↑ a b Austrian State Archives 1999, p. 244.
  4. ↑ Both arrested after the coup, see Stekl 2004, p. 122.
  5. ^ Minutes of the Council of Ministers, Volume 8, Part 4, p. 159.
  6. ↑ Hans Schafranek 2006, p. 71.
  7. ^ Report by Rudolf Weydenhammer on the July coup of 1934
  8. ↑ Harald Irnberger 1983, p. 187.
  9. ↑ Horak 2005, p. 327.
  10. ↑ Horak 2005, p. 333.
  11. ↑ Walterskirchen 2004, p. 240.
personal data
SURNAME Ergert, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian news officer
DATE OF BIRTH June 10, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH June 20, 1966
Place of death Munich