Otto Wächter
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Baron Otto Gustav von Wächter (8 July 1901, Vienna, Austria-Hungary
– 14 July 1949, Rome, Italy) was an Austrian lawyer and Nazi
politician and administrative officer. During World War II, he was the Governor (head of the civil administration)
of two parts of
occupied Poland: first of Kraków in the General Government
and, then, of District of Galicia
(now part of mostly Ukraine), before being
appointed as head of the German Military Administration in Fascist Italy.
For
the last two months of the war he was responsible for the non-German forces at
the Reich Main
Security Office (RSHA) in Berlin. Although he finished his career
with the honorary rank of an SS-Gruppenführer (lieutenant general), his
duties were confined to an administrative role, and he was never part of the SS
and Police forces in any of the occupied territories.
68,000
Jews
were expelled from Krakow in 1940 and the Kraków Ghetto was created in 1941 by his decrees. After WWII,
the Soviets-controlled Polish government petitioned the Americans
in control of Allied-occupied
Germany that Wächter be delivered for trial for being responsible
for the mass murder of one hundred thousand Polish citizens, but he was
successfully hiding for 4 years. In 1949, Wächter was given refuge by pro-Nazi
Austrian Bishop Alois Hudal in the Vatican where he died from kidney disease in
July 1949, allegedly poisoned.
INTERNET SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_W%C3%A4chter
1901–1934 Early life and Nazi activist
Otto
Gustav von Wächter was the third child and only son of Martha Pfob, daughter of
the owner of the Graben Hotel in Vienna Centre. His father, Joseph Freiherr von
Wächter, was born in northern Bohemia and served in the Austro-Hungarian Army.
In the last year of the First World War,
Joseph Freiherr von Wächter was decorated with the Knight's Cross of the Order
of Maria Theresia, that earned him the title of Freiherr (Baron). In 1922, after
the first Austrian Republic was established, he was twice nominated as Minister
of Defence in the Cabinet of Monsignor Dr Ignaz Seipel. Wächter spent his first
years in Vienna before the family moved to Trieste then, Austria, in 1908. For
the duration of World War I he lived in southern Bohemia, taking his A-levels
in 1919 at the German High School in Budweis - České Budějovice, where everyday
life was dominated by the national differences between Germans and Czechs.
The
family moved to Vienna, where Wächter studied law and joined a number of
diverse national and sporting organizations. In 1923 he joined the SA and
became Austrian Champion in M8+ (eight-man rowing team). He received his
doctorate in 1925 and in 1929 began practicing as a lawyer. His clients
included indicted members of the Nazi Party, which he joined on 24 October
1930 (party No: 301093). On 11 September 1932, Wächter married Charlotte
Bleckmann (born 20 October 1908) daughter of a Styrian steel magnate. Wächter
continued to work for the Nazi Party in Vienna as organizer and defender of
accused Nazis in court and subsequently played a leading role in the
organization of the failed July Putsch of 25 July 1934, which eventually led to
the assassination of Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss
by his former Vice-chancellor Major Emil Fey. After the failed coup, Wächter
fled to Nazi Germany. He entered the SS on 1 January 1932, (SS No: 235368) and
completed his German military service in Freising, Bavaria. In 1935 his
Austrian citizenship was denied and German citizenship conferred upon him while
he completed his academic training and education as a lawyer in Germany. In
1937 he started working in the relief organization of Austrian NS-refugees in
Berlin.
1938–1939 State Secretary in the Nazi
government in Vienna
Following
the “Anschluss”,
(the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany) on 12 March 1938, Wächter held
the post of state commissar in the "Liquidation Ministry" under the
Nazi governor of Austria, Seyss-Inquart, from 24 May 1938 to 30 April 1939. The
government body he headed known as the "Wächter-Kommission", and
responsible for the dismissal and/or compulsory retirement of all Austrian
officials who did not conform with the Nazi regime. Because of the fact that
the former Austrian bureaucracy was strictly Anti-Semitic, only a small
fraction of the officials were actually dismissed.
1939–1941: Governor of Kraków, Poland
Following
the defeat of Poland in September 1939, the Germans established a puppet state
known as the General Government which was ruled over by Hans Frank. Until
1940 his deputy was the Austrian Arthur Seyss-Inquart, who took Wächter with
him to the General Government, where he was appointed as Governor of the
administrative district of Kraków.
From
the outset Wächter proved to be an effective administrator. He also understood
that the policies of racial discrimination, brute force and coercion deprived
Germany of substantial material assistance and alienated large sections of the
local population. He preferred instead to draw upon the experiences of the
Austrian Government up to the First World War. In this sense he chose the two crowns
of Galicia in the coat-of-arms issued for the nobility of his father. As
Governor of Kraków he was under the direct and local supervision of Frank and
had to face the fanatical actions of the local SS and police forces.
The
arrest on 6 November 1939 of the entire staff of professors and academics of
the Jagiellonian University and other academic
institutions and their subsequent deportation to Sachsenhausen concentration
camp called Sonderaktion Krakau resulted in widespread condemnation
worldwide. Wächter publicly criticised the action which took place without his
knowledge and reportedly tried to free the academics. Nevertheless, because of
the "Special action Krakow" he was indicted by exiled Poles in New
York on 16 October 1942.In his capacity as Governor an execution warrant for 52
Poles in Bochnia was issued 18 December 1939 under Wächter's signature, as
reprisal for killing two Viennese police officers.
Likewise
in December 1940, a decree organizing the expulsion of the city's 68,000 Jews
also appeared under his name as did a further decree ordering the remaining
15,000 Jews to move into the newly created Kraków
Ghetto ("Jewish Residence Zone") issued on 3 March 1941.
Wächter,
unlike his wife who was often in the company of the Franks, tried to keep his
distance from them. The family lived in a pseudo Romanesque villa in
Przegorzaly on a steep slope above the Vistula outside Kraków, which belonged
to Professor Szyszko-Bohusz, head of the restoration measures of the Royal
Wawel. The atmosphere of the confiscated building did not meet with the
approval of Wächter's wife, so she built which she called “Wartenberg Castle”.
Frustrated with the severe limitations of his role, Wächter was about to resign
from his office in Kraków, when he received a new posting in Galicia.
Hans Frank with districts
administrators in 1942 from left: Ernst Kundt, Ludwig
Fischer, Hans Frank, Otto Wächter, Ernst Zörner, Richard
Wendler.
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1942–1944: Governor of Galicia,
Ukraine
Following
the German invasion of the Soviet Union on 21 June 1941, the Soviet-occupied
eastern part of the former Austrian province of Galicia was attached to the
General Government as the District of Galicia. Its capital city variously known
as L'viv (Ukrainian), Lwów (Polish) and Lemberg (German) had been - after
Vienna, Budapest and Prague - the largest in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where
Poles, Ukrainians and Jews had lived together for centuries. The first German
governor was Karl Lasch, an intimate friend of Frank, who was later arrested
and shot for extensive black market activities on orders of Reichsführer-SS
Heinrich Himmler. Wächter was chosen by Hitler "as the best man on the
spot". and inserted as Governor on 22 January 1943.
His
first official visit was to the influential and respected Greek Catholic
Metropolit Andrij Aleksander Szeptycki (Sheptytsky). With his assistance
Wächter endeavored to promote a greater degree of co-operation among the
occupying Germans and the various ethnic elements in the district of Galicia.
Consequently, he immediately found himself in conflict with
SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich Wilhelm Krüger, the Reichsführer’s
representative in the Generalgovernment and executor of his planned large scale
resettlement programs. At the government meeting in Kraków on 17 February,
Wächter publicly opposed plans to "germanize" the city of Lemberg,
which would have resulted in the expulsion of its entire population stating: “A
German colonization of the East during the war would bring about the collapse
of production.”
Wächter's
continued opposition to Krüger policies led to a number of open confrontations.
To avoid further altercations, Himmler offered Wächter the chance to relocate
to Vienna, which he declined. As Governor of Galicia, while he remained a firm
believer in the principle 'Germany first', his administration often went
further to accommodate the wishes of the population than it was required to. He
was frequently obliged to use his influence and connections by first
circumventing General Governor Hans Frank and by exploiting the strained
relations between Frank and Himmler to pursue his own policies. Wächter
consciously selected men with liberal views for the key posts in his
administration, notably his department heads Otto Bauer and Dr. Ludwig
Losacker, with whom he consulted before deciding all important issues.
In
late 1942 Wächter visited the “Reichskommissariat Ukraine” (eastern Ukraine) to
witness first hand the effect of the implementation of the Nazi Untermensch
(subhuman) philosophy by Gauleiter Erich Koch and his policies of repression
and subjugation. On his return in December 1942 he sent a secret ten page
letter to Martin Bormann in the Führerhauptquartier (Führer Headquarters) in
Berlin, criticizing the serious mistakes made in the handling of the Ukrainians
and their far reaching ramifications with regard the overall conduct of the
German policy in the east during the war against the Soviet Union.
Whilst
Governor of Galicia, he established an Waffen-SS Division recruited from the
Ukrainian population of Galicia, under German supervision, to fight against the
hated Bolsheviks. The formation of the unit was approved by Himmler after the
disastrous German defeat at Stalingrad. Wächter submitted the proposal to
Himmler on 1 March 1943, and, on 28 April, the SS Division Galicia was
publicly inaugurated.[8]
1944–1945: end of the war
With
the loss of the entire District of Galicia on 26 July 1944 to the advancing Red
Army, Wächter sought to be released from his administrative obligations in the
General Government so that he could take up a position in the Waffen-SS. In
response Himmler agreed to order his release on the basis that he assume a new
commission as "Chief of the Military Administration to the Plenipotentiary
General of the German Wehrmacht in Italy headed by SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Karl
Wolff.
Himmler
felt Wächter would be "of immense use in this equally interesting and
difficult field." On assuming his new post “Wächter relocated to Gardone
on the Lago di Garda.
As
the German situation at the front worsened day by day, in a vain attempt to
regain the military initiative the Nazi authorities became increasingly
desperate and sought to exploit the Eastern European Anti-Bolshevik movements.
In so doing, on 30 January 1945 Himmler appointed Wächter as subsidiary head of
the Group D of the RSHA in Berlin, which sought to utilize and combine the
Russian Liberation Army of General Andrey Vlasov and the newly formed "Ukrainian
National Army" which included the 1st Ukrainian Division (formerly the 14
Galician Division), the creation of which he had instigated.
Vlasov's
'federalist' concept which required the subordination of all the other former
Soviet nationalities to his overall command, proved to be an insurmountable
obstacle for Wächter who was unable to bring about the unification of Vlasov
and the separatist Ukrainians led by General Pavlo Shandruk. Nevertheless,
Wächter redoubled his efforts with the Ukrainians whom he rejoined on 7 April
1945 in Carinthia. On 8 May 1945, Wächter informed General Shandruk of the
unconditional surrender of the forces of the German Reich with the following
words: "Now, General, you are the central figure in the action of saving
the Division, and possibly of all of us who are with you." In Zell am See,
amidst the German collapse, his wife burned a crate full of documents he had
methodically collected to justify his deeds, which should demonstrate
"that he had done everything to help so many people".
1945–1949 Post-war and death in Rome
Following
German capitulation, Wächter remained with the staff of the 1st Division of the
Ukrainian National Army until 10 May. He left them near Tamsweg in the Salzburg
mountain district to avoid being taken prisoner and inevitable extradition to
the Soviet Union. Together with a young member of the 24th
Waffen-Gebirgs-(Karstjäger-) Division of the Waffen-SS, he successfully hid for
4 years, sustained by his wife who supplied both men with food and equipment
from secret pick-up points. In the spring of 1949 Wächter crossed the border to
South Tyrol in Italy where he met his wife and his elder children for the last
time.
On
24 April 1949 he arrived in Rome, where through the Austrian Bishop, Dr Alois Hudal,
rector of the Teutonic College of Santa Maria dell'Anima, he found rudimentary
accommodation in the clerical institute “Vigna Pia” on the southern outskirts
of Rome under the name of Alfredo Reinhardt. In June he took part in an Italian
film, playing the part of an actor and was in the process of collecting
information about a flight to South America. As a result of his daily morning
swim in the polluted Tiber he contracted jaundice on 3 July. On 9 July, he was
taken to Santo Spirito Hospital near the Vatican where Wächter revealed his
true identity. He received last rites from Bishop Hudal in the evening of 13
July and died peacefully in the early hours of 14 July 1949.
Wächter and the Holocaust
Largely
as consequence of work undertaken by the famous Nazi hunter, Simon Wiesenthal, Wächter has been portrayed as one of the more prominent
perpetrators of the Holocaust and a leader of the Jewish
extermination campaign in the General Government. Wiesenthal claimed to
personally have seen Wächter on 15 August 1942 inside the ghetto of Lemberg,
rounding up four thousand elderly Jews, including his own mother, who were
subsequently driven to the railway station to be sent to death camps. However,
from 14-16 August 1942, Wächter was in Kraków,
attending the NSDAP Party Congress. He held the honorary rank of SS-Gruppenführer,
conferred on him by the Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler to ensure his subservience.
The dual German administration in the General Government meant that he did not
control the SS and Police matters which in Lemberg were within the remit of
Katzmann.
As
police and security responsibilities were subsequently enlarged the possibility
of Wächter influencing matters outside his responsibilities became successively
smaller and finally non-existent. His most radical remark is documented during
the government session on 20 October 1941 in Kraków, where he camouflaged his
attempt to alleviate the conditions for the Jews. The protocol states:
"With regard to the solution found in the Kraków Jewish residential
districts, the governor mentioned that according to the view that would have
been followed here in Kraków, the Jew is to be forced to help himself."
Yet the protocol ends as follows: "The governor points out, however, that
ultimately a radical solution of the Jewish question is inevitable and that no
consideration of any kind then - as certain artisan's interests - could be taken“.This
has been interpreted as proof that Wächter decided on the extermination of Jews
by gassing, however, it is noted that he did not have control of influencing
the fate of the Jews, which was a “Geheime Reichssache” – Secret state matter –
and as such under the direct orders of Himmler.
Wächter and the Ukrainian Division
As
Governor of Lemberg.Wächter was finally able to realize his political
ambitions. Even though he belonged to the Civil Government, he succeeded in
establishing a native military force which he wanted to call the “Ukrainian
Division” from the beginning. This was forbidden by Himmler who preferred to
employ the term "Galician", and was only eventually realized on 12
November 1944, due to Wächter’s efforts in his capacity as subsidiary head of
the Group D of the RSHA in Berlin. Wächter worked on behalf of the Ukrainians
and successfully secured the appointment of General Pavlo Shandruk, a former
officer in the Polish Army, as commander of the Ukrainian National Army. From
this point on he did his utmost to save this unit from extradition to the
Soviet Union which was expressively demanded by Stalin at the Yalta Conference
in February 1945.
The
failure of the Western allies to surrender the only Eastern multinational
military force after the war despite pressure from the Soviet Union, can be
directly attributed to Wächter's influence which he exerted by secretly contacting
General Władysław Anders of the Polish II Corps under
western allied command and the intervention of Ukrainian Archbishop Ivan Bucko,
who was in the Vatican. The rescue of this division had been planned in advance
of a cessation of hostilities. The influence of this action affected the eight
thousand or so soldiers held in the British internment camp at Rimini, Italy,
and whose names appeared in the so-called “Rimini List” and represented a
general attitude of the Western Ukrainians.
Wächter and his legacy
Whilst
he was in office, Wächter remained a feared individual by the Soviet government
because the success of his policies threatened Communist rule in Eastern Europe.
With his contacts he might have been of value for the Western Allies in 1949,
when the Cold War between the world powers was in its infancy. His son Horst
appeared in an episode of the PBS television series Independent
Lens, entitled "My
Nazi Legacy: What Our Fathers Did", which aired in May 2016.
Notes
Hitherto the date
of Wächter’s decease has been incorrectly cited in all publications, due to an
imposing headline which appeared on 2 September 1949, in Rome and Vienna, one
and a half months after his death.
Cymet, David (Jul 10, 2012). History
Vs. Apologetics: The Holocaust, the Third Reich, and the Catholic Church.
Lexington Books. p. 510. ISBN 0739132954.
The pair eventually had six children, four daughters and
two sons: Otto Richard (1933-1997) and Horst Arthur (born 1939).
This was particularly apparent in the public sector where
the elimination of the Jews had already started in the First Austrian Republic.
In 1933, among the 160,696 civil servants just 682 belonged to the mosaic
religion: Maderegger p. 240 cit. after Irene Harand, So oder so? Die
Wahrheit über den Antisemitismus (One way or another? The truth about
Antisemitism), Vienna, 1933.
Letter to his father, Kraków, 9
December 1939. – Archive Wächter
The action was disparagingly referred to by him as “smut”,
Letter to his wife, 17 December 1939 – Archive Wächter
This is the only time Wächter is named in the Nuremberg
Trial Proceedings: Vol. 12, 112th day (23 April 1946), p. 106. The
circumstances of the execution naming Wächters intervention is described by
General Glaise von Horstenau in Broucek, p. 445
Schenk p. 60: “She interfered constantly in construction
and plundered palaces in Warsaw and Krakow museums”. The harsh judgement of
Professor Szyszko-Bohusz on Baroness Wächter is to understand on (sic) the
background of his employment in the Wawel during the whole period of the war.
"FilmSpringOpen
- Filmmakers social networking". Filmspringopen.eu. Retrieved 4
May 2016.
Wächter Archive, memories of Charlotte Wächter.
Melitta Wiedemann, Wächter Archive sound recording of
Charlotte Wächter.
In a five page letter dated 24 February 1942, Krüger
reminded Wächter him after emphasizing that he was senior in both age and rank,
that his pronouncements on the resettlement issue were a direct confrontation
to the policies of Himmler: In a five page letter to Wächter, after emphasising
that he was Wächter's senior in both age and rank, Krüger reminded him that his
recent public pronouncements on this issue were a direct confrontation to the
policies of the Reichsführer-SS: “Even though you wear the uniform of an SS
Brigade Leader, in performing the tasks provided to you, you have never guided
that you are members of the SS.”
Losacker p. 127.
Losacker was dismissed of all his functions on 10 October 1943 for defending Poles and put into an SS penal squad on the Italian front; Bauer was shot by a Soviet agent, Nikolai Iwanowitsch Kusnezow, on 9 February 1944 in place of Wächter after W. had been warned by the OUN – Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists underground organisation UPA, calling him “a very decent human“ (written in italics in the original): letter 28 September 1943 in Archive Wächter.
Losacker was dismissed of all his functions on 10 October 1943 for defending Poles and put into an SS penal squad on the Italian front; Bauer was shot by a Soviet agent, Nikolai Iwanowitsch Kusnezow, on 9 February 1944 in place of Wächter after W. had been warned by the OUN – Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists underground organisation UPA, calling him “a very decent human“ (written in italics in the original): letter 28 September 1943 in Archive Wächter.
Despite mandatory enrolment requirements, on 30 October
1943 the Supplementary Office of the Waffen-SS produced the following breakdown
for the registrations: Volunteered/Registered 80,000; called up for service
19,047; actually reported 13,245.
Letter: 28 July 1944 dzt Kracow, Gouverneur des Distrikits
Galizien, An den Reichsführer-SS und Chef der Deutschen Polizei
Reichsinnenminister Heinrich Himmler, NA T175, roll 32.
Wolf managed to shorten the war in Italy by six days
through secret negotiations with Allan F. Dulles, head of
the American secret services, in Switzerland.
Telex Heinrich Himmler, 1 August 1944, Melnyk to Battle,
p. 175
He heavily criticised SS-Gruppenführer Odilo Globocnik,
who was one of the most brutal SS-leaders in the General Government. After
being also sent to Italy he continued his extermination programs at Trieste.
“G. who variously rages around here too.” Letter dated 9 September 1944:
Archive Wächter.
Germanic and Volunteer Central Office in the RSHA. He
arrived in Berlin on 26 February 1945.
Shandruk: 28. The 1st Ukrainian Division.
Shandruk: 29. The Surrender
Archive Wächter, memory files Charlotte Wächter.
Provisional list of individual Poles and Jews saved by him; in Archive Wächter.
Archive Wächter, bequest Otto Wächter.
Simon Wiesenthal, The Murderers Among Us,
McGraw-Hill, New York, 1967
Losacker p. 127; re Wächter's outbursts of anger over
Katzmann.
Excerpt also in Präg, 10 October 1942.
"Opera
Mundi - The evaluation of my father, Otto Wächter".
Operamundi.uol.com.br. 26 September 2013. Retrieved 2
May 2016.
Documents in Archive Wächter.
Names of
personalities in Lemberg in 2006 in Archive Wächter
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