Ernst Kaltenbrunner (4 October 1903 – 16 October 1946) was an Austrian lawyer, high-ranking SS official during the Nazi era, major perpetrator of the Holocaust, and convicted war criminal. After the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in 1942, and a brief period under Heinrich Himmler, Kaltenbrunner was named the third director of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), which included the offices of Gestapo, Kripo and SD, serving from January 1943 until the end of World War II in Europe. He was also the president of Interpol during the same time period.
Kaltenbrunner obtained a doctorate in law from the University of Graz in 1926. He joined the Nazi Party in 1930 and the SS in 1931, and by 1935 he was considered a leader of the Austrian SS. In 1938, he assisted in the Anschluss and was given command of the SS and police force in Austria. In January 1943, Kaltenbrunner was appointed chief of the RSHA, succeeding Reinhard Heydrich, who had been assassinated in June 1942.
A committed antisemite, Kaltenbrunner played a pivotal role in orchestrating the Holocaust, which intensified under his leadership. He oversaw the coordination of security and law enforcement agencies involved in widespread extermination, the suppression of resistance movements in occupied territories, extensive arrests, deportations, and executions. He was the highest-ranking member of the SS to face trial (Himmler having committed suicide in May 1945) at the Nuremberg trials, where he was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Kaltenbrunner was sentenced to death, and was executed by hanging on 16 October 1946.
Personal life Kaltenbrunner was born in Ried im Innkreis, Austria-Hungary, and growing up had a close relationship with his mother (born Theresia Utwardy). His father Hugo was a lawyer, and Kaltenbrunner spent his early years and primary education in Raab, later attending the Realgymnasium in Linz. Raised in a nationalist family, his ideological understanding of the world was shaped to some extent by the völkisch Pan-Germanism movement in Austria, since his father was an adherent to its ideals. Like his father, the younger Kaltenbrunner's pan-Germanism—replete with antisemitism and the notion that political conflict was a racial struggle—was cultivated in the nationalist student fraternities known as Burschenschaften. Kaltenbrunner was incidentally also childhood friends with Adolf Eichmann, the infamous SS officer who later played a key role in implementing the Nazis' "Final Solution" against Europe's Jews.
After finishing gymnasium in 1921, Kaltenbrunner first studied chemistry at the University of Graz, where his father had matriculated, but switched to law in 1923. While studying at Graz, he joined the Arminia fraternity, became active in student politics, and participated in demonstrations against Marxism and clerical influence. He obtained his doctorate in 1926. Kaltenbrunner then worked at a law firm in Salzburg for a year before opening his own law office in Linz. He had deep scars on his face reportedly from duelling in his student days, although some sources attribute them to a drunk-driving crash.
By 1928, Kaltenbrunner was bored, lonely, and unfulfilled according to historian Peter Black; however Kaltenbrunner's work as a provincial lawyer in Linz also brought him into the right-wing "gymnastic circles in Linz" where he joined the Deutsch-Volkischer Turnverein, an organization with close ties to the paramilitary formation of the Austrian Heimwehr. Black described this latter organization as "a training ground for the illegal Nazi SA and SS". In the summer of 1929, Kaltenbrunner joined the Heimwehr, which Black claims merged his "emotional need for membership in a community" with his political ideals.
On 14 January 1934, Kaltenbrunner married Elisabeth Eder (20 October 1908 – 20 May 2002), who was also a Nazi Party member; the couple had three children. In addition to the children from his marriage, Kaltenbrunner had twins, Ursula and Wolfgang (b. 1945) with his long-time mistress, Gisela Gräfin von Westarp (27 June 1920 – 2 June 1983). All the children survived the war.
SS career On 18 October 1930, Kaltenbrunner joined the Nazi Party as member number 300,179. In 1931, he was the Bezirksredner (district speaker) for the Nazi Party in Upper Austria. Kaltenbrunner joined the Schutzstaffel (SS) on 31 August 1931 after encouragement by then leader of Hitler's bodyguard, SS-Standartenführer Sepp Dietrich; his SS number being 13,039. Black writes that "Kaltenbrunner found in the Nazi movement and the SS what he politically desired and emotionally needed: a world where the ideal of the racial community was prized, where the theory of racial struggle was accepted as an obvious fact, where all doubts about the meaning of existence were swept away."
Kaltenbrunner first became a Rechtsberater (legal consultant) for the Nazi Party in 1929 and later held this same position for SS Abschnitt (Section) VIII, beginning in 1932. That same year he began working at the law practice of his father, who had taken ill. In October 1932, Ernst Röhm appointed Kaltenbrunner as an SA- und SS-Gruppenrechtsberater, making it his job to provide free legal counsel for members of either unit should they be arrested for "performing their duty". By 1933, Kaltenbrunner had become head of the National-Socialist Lawyers' League in Linz.
In January 1934, Kaltenbrunner was briefly jailed at the Kaisersteinbruch detention camp with other Nazis for conspiracy by the Engelbert Dollfuss government. While there, he led a hunger strike against the inadequate food rations, poor sanitary conditions, and unfair treatment by the Heimwehr guards at the camp, which forced the government to release 490 of the party members. In 1935, he was jailed again on suspicion of high treason; more specifically, Kaltenbrunner was accused of spreading Nazi propaganda materials to the army. This charge was dropped, but he was sentenced to six months imprisonment for conspiracy and he lost his license to practice law. Although many of the accused and arrested Austrian Nazis emigrated to Germany, Kaltenbrunner remained in Austria—a fact he shared with an acquaintance in 1935—at Himmler's insistence, who saw in the Austrian a useful associate for strengthening the SS there.
From mid-1935 Kaltenbrunner was head of the illegal SS Abschnitt VIII in Linz and was considered a leader of the Austrian SS. To provide Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich and Heinz Jost with new information, Kaltenbrunner repeatedly made trips to Bavaria. He would hide on a train and on a ship that traveled to Passau, then return with money and orders for Austrian comrades. During his trips between the two countries, he frequently carried detailed reports gathered by the Nazi underground in Austria, including photos Kaltenbrunner had taken in autumn 1936 of confidential documents that detailed Austria's foreign policy. During January 1937, Himmler appointed Kaltenbrunner chief of the entire Austrian SS. Kaltenbrunner was arrested again by Austrian authorities on charges of heading the illegal Nazi Party organization (the Nazi Relief Office) in Oberösterreich. He was released in September.
Acting on orders from Hermann Göring, Kaltenbrunner assisted in bringing about the Anschluss with Germany (13 March 1938); he was awarded the role of State Secretary for Public Security in the Seyss-Inquart cabinet of 11 to 13 March 1938. Controlled from behind the scenes by Himmler, Kaltenbrunner still led, albeit clandestinely, the Austrian SS as part of his duty to "coordinate" and manage the Austrian population – this entailed the Nazification of all aspects of Austrian society. Then on 21 March 1938, he was promoted to SS-Brigadeführer. At the 10 April 1938 parliamentary election, he was elected to the Reichstag as a deputy from Ostmark.Ernst Kaltenbrunner entry in the Reichstag Members Database He retained this seat until the fall of the Nazi regime on 8 May 1945. Amid this activity, he helped establish the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp near Linz. Mauthausen was the first Nazi concentration camp opened in Austria following the Anschluss. On 11 September 1938, Kaltenbrunner was promoted to the rank of SS-Gruppenführer (equivalent to a lieutenant general in the German Army) while holding the position of leader of SS-Oberabschnitt Österreich (re-designated SS-Oberabschnitt Donau in November 1938). Also in 1938, he was appointed Higher SS and Police Leader (Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer; HSSPF) for Oberabschnitt Donau, which was the primary SS command in Austria (he held that post until 30 January 1943).
World War II
In June 1940, Kaltenbrunner was appointed Vienna's chief of police and held that additional post for a year. In July 1940, he was commissioned as an SS-Untersturmführer into the Waffen-SS Reserve. Alongside his many official duties, Kaltenbrunner also developed an intelligence network across Austria, moving southeastwards, which eventually brought him to Himmler's attention for appointment as chief of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) in January 1943. The RSHA was composed of the SiPo (Sicherheitspolizei; the combined forces of the Gestapo and Kripo) along with the SD (Sicherheitsdienst, Security Service). Kaltenbrunner replaced Heydrich, who had been assassinated in June 1942. Kaltenbrunner held this position until the end of World War II. Hardly anyone knew Kaltenbrunner, and upon his appointment, Himmler transferred responsibility both for SS personnel and for economics from the RSHA to the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office. Nonetheless, Kaltenbrunner was promoted to SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei on 21 June 1943. He also replaced Heydrich as president (serving from 1943 to 1945) of the International Criminal Police Commission (ICPC), the organization today known as Interpol.
Fearing a collapsing home-front due to the Allied bombing campaigns, and worried that another "stab-in-the-back" at home could arise as a result, Kaltenbrunner immediately tightened the Nazi grip within Germany. From what historian Anthony Read relates, Kaltenbrunner's appointment as RSHA chief came as a surprise given the other possible candidates like the head of the Gestapo, Heinrich Müller, or even the SD foreign-intelligence chief, Walter Schellenberg. Historian Richard Grunberger also added the name of Wilhelm Stuckart, the future minister of the German Interior, as another potential candidate for head of the RSHA; however, he suggests that Kaltenbrunner was most likely selected since he was a comparative "newcomer", expected to be more "pliable" in Himmler's hands.
Like many of the ideological fanatics in the regime, Kaltenbrunner was a committed antisemite. According to former SS-Sturmbannführer Hans Georg Mayer, Kaltenbrunner was present at a December 1940 meeting among Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Himmler and Heydrich where it was decided to gas all Jews incapable of heavy physical work. Under Kaltenbrunner's command, the genocide of Jews picked up pace as "the process of extermination was to be expedited and the concentration of the Jews in the Reich itself and the occupied countries were to be liquidated as soon as possible." Kaltenbrunner stayed constantly informed over the status of concentration-camp activities, receiving periodic reports at his office in the RSHA.
To combat homosexuality across the greater Reich, Kaltenbrunner pushed the Ministry of justice in July 1943 for an edict mandating compulsory castration for anyone found guilty of this offence. While this was rejected, he still took steps to get the army to review some 6,000 cases to prosecute homosexuals.