Franz Kutschera

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Franz Kutschera
Reichsgau Carinthia
In office
12 February 1939 – 27 November 1941
Preceded byHubert Klausner
Succeeded byFriedrich Rainer
Personal details
Born(1904-02-22)22 February 1904
Oberwaltersdorf, Austria-Hungary
Died1 February 1944(1944-02-01) (aged 39)
Warsaw, German-occupied Poland
Political partyNSDAP

Franz Kutschera (22 February 1904 – 1 February 1944) was an

Austrian Nazi politician and government official. He held numerous administrative offices with the Nazi Party and the Schutzstaffel (SS) both before and after the Anschluss of Austria in 1938. During World War II, he served with the SS in France, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, and finally Poland
.

In 1943, Kutschera was appointed the

Polish government in exile, targeted him for assassination. On 1 February 1944, he was gunned down in front of the SS headquarters in Warsaw in a special operation by Kedyw
, a dedicated resistance special operations unit. In reprisal, the Germans executed 300 Polish civilians.

Life

Kutschera was born in

civil servant. After primary school he served as a cabin boy in the Austro-Hungarian Navy in 1918–19 and later attended a gymnasium in Villach. After graduation he briefly enrolled at a machinists school in Budapest before training to become a gardener like his father. For several years Kutschera would reside in Opava and Karlovy Vary in the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia
.

Early Nazi career

KZ Mauthausen in April 1941, with August Eigruber (far left), Franz Ziereis (left), Karl Wolff
(right) and Franz Kutschera (far right)

Kutschera joined the

Austrofascist government of Engelbert Dollfuss. Despite the government ban, Kutschera remained a committed Party activist and was arrested several times by Austrian authorities for illegal pro-Nazi political activities. From 1933 he served as an SS-Truppführer in Carinthia, and he joined the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) in 1934. In July 1935 he was appointed Deputy Commander of the 90th SS-Standarte in Klagenfurt
, serving in this capacity until March 1938.

After the Austrian

10 April 1938 election and referendum, Kutschera became a member of the Großdeutscher Reichstag, maintaining this position until his death. On 24 May he was formally appointed Deputy Gauleiter, essentially running the Gau during Klausner's frequent absences in Vienna in his capacity as deputy to Reichskommissar Josef Bürckel.[1]

In February 1939, he was also appointed to the People's Court as a lay judge and upon Klausner's sudden death on 12 February, Kutschera was elevated to the post of Acting Gauleiter for Carinthia.

World War II

Shortly after the outbreak of

Wehrkreis (Military District) XVIII, who was headquartered in Salzburg.[2] Kutschera volunteered for military service with the Wehrmacht in March 1940 and was assigned to the 139th Gebirgsjäger (light infantry) regiment of the 3rd Mountain Division. He was later transferred to the 6th Mountain Division and took part in the Battle of France, serving in the Vosges during May and June 1940.[3]

He was promoted to the rank of SS-

Balkan Campaign, on 14 April 1941 Kutschera was named Chief of Civil Administration for Slovenian Carinthia and Upper Carniola, which were administered as part of his Gau, and where he became infamous in the war against the Yugoslav Partisans for his fanaticism and extreme harshness. On 27 November 1941, Kutschera was dismissed as Gauleiter for reportedly plotting to absorb the neighboring Reichsgau Salzburg into his jurisdiction. He was succeeded by his rival, Friedrich Rainer, the Gauleiter in Salzburg.[2]

In January 1942, Kutschera was seconded to the staff of

SS and Police Leader (SSPF) for the Mogilev
district.

Warsaw

Warsaw SS and Police leader announcement of execution of 60 Polish hostages and sentencing to death of 40 more, November 1943

On 25 September 1943, Kutschera took office as SS and Police Leader for the

roundups (łapanka) of Polish citizens and the number of hostage executions
. Every day lists were hung in public announcing the names of the next Poles to be executed in the event of any attack on a German soldier or police officer. These notices were always signed anonymously by the "Commander of the SS and Police at Warsaw District".

Kutschera's exact whereabouts while in Warsaw was a closely guarded secret within the Reich Security Main Office but were discovered in December 1943 by Aleksander Kunicki (Rayski), chief of intelligence for the Agat (Anti-Gestapo) unit of Kedyw. In the course of his routine surveillance of the Gestapo offices on Aleje Szucha, Rayski noticed an Opel Admiral limousine entering the driveway of the nearby Warsaw SS headquarters. The SS officer who emerged from the car wore the clearly identifiable rank and insignia of a Brigadeführer. Intrigued, Rayski began to secretly monitor the mysterious SS man's arrivals and departures from SS headquarters and filed a report with his superiors. An investigation by Kedyw in January 1944 confirmed that the man being observed by Rayski was Franz Kutschera.

Assassination

Main article: Operation Kutschera
Leszczyński Palace Ujazdowskie 23
Ujazdów Avenue
23 housing Headquarters for Warsaw district of SS and Police where Kutschera was assassinated.

Following his discovery by Rayski, Kutschera was tried in absentia by a secret

Emil August Fieldorf
(Nil), whose organization had been given the tasks of planning and performing the assassination.

The execution was carried out by the

Ujazdów Avenue. On the morning of 1 February 1944 three Kedyw gunmen: Bronisław Pietraszewicz [pl] (Lot), who was armed with a German MP 40 submachine gun; Zdzisław Poradzki [pl] (Kruszynka), carrying a British Sten; and Michał Issajewicz [pl] (Miś), armed with a Luger pistol
, ambushed Kutschera as his limousine approached SS Headquarters and opened fire directly into the car. Both Kutschera and his driver were shot multiple times and killed. A gun battle then erupted between the members of the assassination team and the responding German troops in which four Poles and two Germans were killed.

Franz Kutschera funeral in occupied Warsaw 1944

Kutschera's funeral ceremony was held by the Nazis at

Warsaw County. Kutschera was succeeded as SS and Police leader by SS-Oberführer Paul Otto Geibel
in March 1944.

In 1990, during the construction of Aleja Prymasa Tysiąclecia in Warsaw, Kutschera's body was moved (together with over 2000 bodies of German soldiers) to the German military cemetery in Joachimów-Mogiły.[5]

Posthumous wife and son

On 4 February 1944, in Deutsches Haus in Warsaw, Kutschera's pregnant Norwegian girlfriend, Jane Lilian Gjertsdatter Steen, daughter of Gjert Henrik Gjertsen Steen and Magna (or Magda) Anette Hansdatter (née Gjengstø) Steen

posthumously married Kutschera in accordance with pagan rituals.[6][7]

Jane Kutschera (later Rognskog) died in Norway in 1994. Her son, Sepp Kutschera, became an Alpinist, who was the first to climb Koh-e Keshni Khan in the Hindukush mountains, in 1963. He died in 2014.[8]

References

  1. ISBN 1-932970-32-0
    .
  2. ^ a b Miller & Schulz 2017, p. 156.
  3. ^ Miller & Schulz 2017, pp. 156–157.
  4. ^ Mazower, Mark (2008) Hitler's Empire, pp 495
  5. ^
    ISBN 978-83-65201-44-7
    .
  6. ^ Family record of Steen (Jane Lilian) showing birth of Sepp Kutschera, nordvikslekt.no. Accessed 10 April 2022.
  7. ^ "Martwy pan młody – Teodora Żukowska". June 29, 2015.
  8. ^ "Ślub trupa i Volksdeutschki | Strefa Historii". strefahistorii.pl.

Sources

External links

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