Wolfram Bruckner

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Wolfram Arnold Bruckner (born May 17, 1903 in Sibiu , Kingdom of Hungary , Austria-Hungary ; † January 1979 in Linz , Austria ) was a Romanian-German " ethnic group leader " and later senior medical officer of the 7th SS volunteer mountain division "Prinz Eugen" . After the Second World War he was a member of the Presidium of the Landsmannschaft of the Transylvanian Saxons in Upper Austria .

Life

Wolfram Bruckner was the son of the Transylvanian chief judge Arnold Bruckner and his wife Berta, née Nendwich. From 1913 to 1921 he attended grammar school in Sibiu. He studied from 1921 to 1926 at the Medical Faculty of the Leopold-Franzens University Innsbruck , where he was active in Georg von Schoenerer's fraternity Germania , of which he was later appointed old gentleman. From 1923 to 1926 he was chairman of the German-Liberal University Committee , the national faction of the General Student Committee . He received his doctorate in November 1926 and received the Romanian license to practice libera practica in 1927 . Then he did his military service. From 1928 to 1933 he was an assistant at the surgical and orthopedic hospitals in Berlin and Ljubljana .

In May 1933 he settled in Sibiu as a surgeon and orthopedist . One month later he joined the National Socialist Self-Help Movement of Germans in Romania (NSDR) of Fritz Fabritius , for which he ran for the local and district council in October of that year. From November headed the local investigation and arbitration committee (USchlA) and was a local speaker. In 1934 he first became a circle speaker in January, then in April the district leader of the Transylvania South district . In June 1935 he became deputy of the country leader Fabritius in the National Labor Front (NAF) and in the same year a member of the People's Council of the People's Community of Germans in Romania . In the Association of German gymnastics and sports clubs in Romania , he was from May 1938 Chairman. In October of that year he was head of the NAF and also headed the State Office for Physical Education .

After Fritz Fabritius was recalled as chairman of the German national community in Romania by the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (VoMi), his deputy Bruckner was raised in November 1939 to the position of " ethnic group leader " of the newly named German ethnic group in Romania . This significantly improved the political climate between the national community and the Romanian government. At that time, however, Bruckner's scope was already largely determined by Berlin; Heinrich Himmler had personally chosen him for this function.

After the abdication of the Romanian King Carol II on September 6, 1940, "State Leader" Ion Antonescu was able to take over the government in the country alone, which suddenly turned relations between Romania and Germany and paved the way for the elimination of moderate politicians the "Volksgemeinschaft". On September 27th, Bruckner was deposed as "ethnic group leader" on Berlin instructions and replaced on the same day by the radical Andreas Schmidt in the same position. The appointment of Bruckner was now a recognizably temporary solution, since this position had already been planned for Schmidt by key positions within the SS in 1939 .

Under the mandate of Wolfram Bruckner, the national community had worked closely with the High Command of the Wehrmacht ( Foreign Office / Defense ) under the direction of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris . With the appointment of Andreas Schmidt, there was a reorientation towards the German secret services; Schmidt worked more intensively with Amt VI (SD-Auslands) under the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) headed by Reinhard Heydrich .

During the Second World War , Bruckner served in the defense post of the Wehrmacht . On the instructions of the Association for German Cultural Relations Abroad (VDA in the VoMi) he built a network of V and SS men in Romania's German settlement area and sent his reports directly to Berlin. He also worked as a senior staff doctor in the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division "Prinz Eugen" . In the SS reached the rank of Hauptsturmführer . Bruckner received awards such as the Order of the Crown of Romania on the ribbon of the medal of bravery with swords, the Star of Romania in the rank of knight, the Iron Cross II. Class and the Order of the Crown of King Zvonimir with swords.

After the war, Bruckner came to Austria, where he was a member of the executive committee of the Transylvanian Saxons in Upper Austria in the 1950s and 1960s . The Federal Chairman of the Landsmannschaft Erhard Plesch presented “our deserved compatriot Dr. Wolfram Bruckner the Landsmannschaft's badge of honor ”.

In 1975 Bruckner took part in a conference of the Working Group for Southeast German Folk and Local Research in the Munich House of the German East , at which, in addition to the organizer Friedrich "Fritz" Cloos, numerous other former Nazi officials from Romania such as Alfred Bonfert , Alfred Csallner , Kaspar Hügel , Josef "Sepp" Schmidt , Michael Stocker and Heinrich Zillich came together.

Wolfram Bruckner was married to Ulrike, b. Jahn. The connection had two daughters, Brigitte and Gundel. He died in January 1979 in Linz.

reception

Georg Wildmann from the Danube Swabian Landsmannschaft in Upper Austria saw Wolfram Bruckner as “rather a weak leader, he was replaced after just one year. In September 1940 there was then a decided “ideological”, Andreas Schmidt, “Volksgruppenführer”.

According to the historian Stephan Olaf Schüller, the appointment of Bruckner marked an important step in the taking over of the Romanian Germans by the German Empire. While the Germans in Romania had previously chosen their chairmen themselves, from now on the Romanian German leadership was determined by Berlin, which was more committed to the “leader of the great German national community” than to its own German national community in Romania.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Klaus Popa : Völkisches Handbuch Südosteuropa, p. 11.
  2. ↑ a b Siebenbürgische Zeitung, volume 2 of January 31, 1979, p. 7, paid content .
  3. ↑ Johann Böhm : National Socialist Indoctrination of Germans in Romania 1932-1944. P. 90.
  4. ↑ Wolfgang Miege: Schmidt, Andreas. In: Biographisches Lexikon zur Geschichte Südosteuropas, Volume 4, Munich 1981, pp. 95–96.
  5. ↑ a b Stephan Olaf Schüller: For Faith, Leader, People, Father or Mother Country ?: The struggles for the German youth in the Romanian Banat (1918–1944). LIT Verlag, Münster 2009, ISBN 3-8258-1910-8 , p. 226.
  6. ↑ Johann Böhm : National Socialist Indoctrination of Germans in Romania 1932-1944. P. 205.
  7. ↑ Johann Böhm : National Socialist Indoctrination of Germans in Romania 1932-1944. P. 111.
  8. ^ Ottmar Traşcă: Andreas Schmidt and the German Ethnic Group in Romania (1940-1944). Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich 2015, p. 18.
  9. ^ Archives and library of the Transylvania Institute in Gundelsheim, A XII-3 / 5,12. In: Johann Böhm: Which was the main reason that Andreas Schmidt (former ethnic group leader of the Germans in Romania) went to Berlin in 1937, as well as reinterpretations of the history of the Transylvanian Saxons. Electronic semi-annual publication for Southeast European history and politics 2/2017, p. 4.
  10. ↑ Südostdeutsche Tageszeitung (Hermannstadt and Temeschburg), volume 143, June 27, 1944, p. 4. In: Klaus Popa: Völkisches Handbuch Südosteuropa, p. 11.
  11. ^ Siebenbürgische Zeitung, volume 12 of December 25, 1957, p. 5, paid content .
    Siebenbürgische Zeitung, volume 6 of June 28, 1960, p. 9, paid content .
    Siebenbürgische Zeitung, volume 21 from November 15, 1967, p. 6, paid content .
    Siebenbürgische Zeitung, volume 3 of February 15, 1968, p. 6, paid content .
    Siebenbürgische Zeitung, volume 11 of July 31, 1980, p. 8, paid content .
  12. ^ Siebenbürgische Zeitung, volume 6 of June 28, 1960, p. 5, paid content .
  13. ^ Hans Wolfram Hockl : A memorable conference. About the meeting of the "Working Group for Southeast German Folk and Local Research" on February 5 and 16, 1975 in the House of the German East , Munich. In: Half-yearly publication for Southeast European history, literature and politics.
  14. ^ Siebenbürgische Zeitung, volume 2 of February 25, 1961, p. 8, paid content .
  15. ^ Siebenbürgische Zeitung, volume 7 of April 30, 1979, p. 3, paid content .
  16. ↑ Georg Wildmann: The "Völkisch" as a model of the Danube Swabian leadership elite in the interwar period. In: donauschwaben-ooe.at, undated.
personal data
SURNAME Bruckner, Wolfram
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bruckner, Wolfram Arnold (birth name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Romanian-German "ethnic group leader", SS-Oberstabsarzt and functionary of the Landsmannschaft of the Transylvanian Saxons
DATE OF BIRTH May 17, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Sibiu , Kingdom of Hungary , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH January 1979
Place of death Linz , Austria