Wilhelm Wolf (politician, 1897)

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Grave of Wilhelm Wolf in the Petersfriedhof Salzburg

Wilhelm Wolf (partly also Wolff ; born January 17, 1897 in Bludenz , Vorarlberg , † July 27, 1939 near Kapelln , Lower Austria ) was an Austrian politician and historian. He was the last Austrian Foreign Minister before the de facto annexation of Austria by the National Socialist German Reich in 1938. As a member of the National Socialist Federal Government of Seyß-Inquart , Wolf also signed the law on the reunification of Austria with the German Reich , with Austria as independent State ceased to exist.

Live and act

Wilhelm Wolf was born in the town of Bludenz in the Vorarlberg Walgau in 1897 . He attended grammar school in Bregenz , where his father worked as a state master builder, and began studying in 1915. At the universities of Graz , Innsbruck , Vienna and Berlin , he completed the studies of history and German literature and was finally in 1920 at the University of Innsbruck with a thesis on "The Old High German glosses of Latin writings on St. Martin" for Doctor of PhD in philosophy . In the same year, on November 1, 1920, Wolf was transferred to the Vorarlberg archives service at the Vorarlberger Landesarchiv . In 1924 he also became secretary of the Vorarlberg art community.

On June 1, 1926, Wilhelm Wolf entered the federal service and was assigned to the Federal Ministry of Education , where he worked for the official library as well as the departments for popular education and film. 1930-31 he was on leave to the management of the scientific department of the radio traffic AG to take over. Back in the ministerial service on October 1, 1934, he was appointed Section Council. On January 1, 1937, he was taken over to the staff of the Federal Chancellery and assigned to the Federal Press Service , where he was appointed Ministerial Councilor on January 1, 1938. In the Federal Press Service he acted as trustee of the press agreement between Austria and the German Reich of July 10, 1937.

After the forced resignation of Federal Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg and his Federal Government Schuschnigg IV on March 11, 1938, Wolf became the successor of his childhood neighbor, Guido Schmidt , Foreign Minister of the Federal Government Seyß-Inquart under Nazi Federal Chancellor Arthur Seyß-Inquart . His term of office was only two days, as one of the first official acts of the new federal government was to pass a bill on the law on the reunification of Austria with the German Reich , which means that the annexation to the German Reich was completed on March 13th. One of the few other acts that Wolf took as Foreign Minister during his short term in office was to issue a visa for Guido Zernatto and his wife, which enabled them to flee from the National Socialists to France via Hungary.

Wolf's job as "Foreign Minister" of the (Reich German) Austrian provincial government consisted only in transferring the "useful" officials from the former Austrian Foreign Ministry to the German Reich Foreign Ministry . In the opinion of the German authorities, Wilhelm Wolf himself was obviously not one of these "useful" officials, despite his assistance in the removal of the Austrian government: he was removed from his post on June 6 and officially adopted as the first foreign minister of the Austrian state government on July 13 . Wolf was then deported to a post as curator at the Consular Academy in Vienna . On September 1, 1938, he retired at his own request.

A little less than a year later, on July 27, 1939, Wolf had a fatal accident in a car accident near the Lower Austrian community of Kapelln . He was buried in Salzburg on July 31, 1939, as part of a state funeral ordered by Adolf Hitler , in the presence of Arthur Seyß-Inquart , who was in charge of his widow.

Private life

Wilhelm Wolf was a member of the Catholic student union AV Austria Innsbruck in the Austrian Cartell Association and was posthumously excluded from this in 1947 due to his function in the union cabinet and as a member of the NSDAP. He and his wife Bertha are buried in the Petersfriedhof Salzburg (crypt No. 2).

literature

  • Gertrude Enderle-Burcel: Wilhelm Wolf - From Vorarlberger Landesarchivar to Foreign Minister of the Arthur Seyss-Inquart government . In: Vorarlberger Landesmuseum (ed.): Zwanziger / Dreissiger . Bregenz 1993.
  • Alois Niederstätter : Wilhelm Wolf in the Vorarlberg State Archives . In: Vorarlberger Landesmuseum (ed.): Zwanziger / Dreissiger . Bregenz 1993.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Gerhard Hartmann: Wilhelm Wolf. Austrian Cartel Association, accessed on January 26, 2014 .
  2. ^ Enderle-Burcel: Wilhelm Wolf - From Vorarlberger Landesarchivar to Foreign Minister of the Arthur Seyss-Inquart government. 1993, p. 69.
  3. ^ Enderle-Burcel: Wilhelm Wolf - From Vorarlberger Landesarchivar to Foreign Minister of the Arthur Seyss-Inquart government. 1993, p. 71.
  4. ↑ a b Enderle-Burcel: Wilhelm Wolf - From Vorarlberger Landesarchivar to Foreign Minister of the Arthur Seyss-Inquart government. 1993, p. 72.
  5. ^ Conrad Dorn, Andreas Lindenthaler: The St. Peter cemetery in Salzburg . Verlag St.-Peter, Salzburg 1982, pp. 108-109, ISBN 3-900173-37-0 .
personal data
SURNAME Wolf, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wolff, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian politician
DATE OF BIRTH January 17, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Bludenz
DATE OF DEATH July 27, 1939
Place of death Chapels