Dr. Kurt von Schuschnigg

It should be noted at the outset that Kurt von Schuschnigg, as Federal Chancellor of Austria from 1934 to 1938, was the supreme representative of the authoritarian corporative state. This chancellor dictatorship, which brutally crushed the February uprising of the Socialists with the help of the Austrian army, also fought National Socialism, which extended its hand to Austria, with all means at its disposal. One of the greatest failures of which Kurt von Schuschnigg can be accused is that, contrary to the wishes of Leopold Kunschak, Josef Reither and many others did not seek a balance with the Social Democrats in the fight against National Socialism, but instead continued his line unwaveringly.

The editors of this site have long grappled with the question of whether a digital stumbling block should be set for Kurt von Schuschnigg, but came to the conclusion that all victims, persecuted persons and resistance fighters who were members of Catholic/Christian student associations as of March 12, 1938 have their place here. Kurt von Schuschnigg was in any case a victim of National Socialism, which is why he should also be mentioned here.

Kurt von Schuschnigg was born the son of an imperial and royal officer in Riva del Garda. He was born in Riva del Garda, the southernmost point of what was then Tyrol. After elementary school, he attended the Jesuit grammar school "Stella Matutina" in Feldkirch in 1907. After graduating from high school, he enlisted as a one-year volunteer in 1915, took part in the 6th Battle of the Isonzo and was taken prisoner of war in Italy as a lieutenant at the end of the First World War, from which he only returned to Austria in September 1919. He then began studying law in Innsbruck and became a member of the student fraternity Austria Innsbruck in 1919. In 1921 he received his doctorate in law. After court practice and clerkship, he becomes a partner in a law practice in Innsbruck. In 1924, he joined the Christian Social Party [CSP], stood as a candidate for the National Council in 1927 and, at the age of 29, became the youngest Christian Social MP [until 1933]. In 1932, he became Minister of Justice in the Karl Bursch II cabinet [† 1936] and was subsequently entrusted with the management of the Federal Ministry of Justice until 1934. When Federal Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuß was killed by the National Socialists on July 25, 1934, Federal President Wilhelm Miklas [1928-1938, † 1956] entrusted Kurt von Schuschnigg with the formation of a new government on July 29, 1934. In addition to the office of Federal Chancellor, he was also entrusted with the leadership of the Federal Ministry of Education [1934-1936], the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry [1936] and the Federal Ministry of Defense [1934-1938].

Kurt von Schuschnigg was placed under house arrest in the Belvedere on March 12, 1938; he was initially imprisoned in the Hotel Metropole Gestapo headquarters in Vienna until the end of May 1938 and from October 1939 in Gestapo custody in Munich After interrogations in the RSHA in Prinz-Albrecht-Straße in Berlin, he was transferred to various concentration camps under the code name "Dr. Auster" until February 1945 (together with his family), he was transferred to various concentration camps, from 1941 to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, then to Flossenbürg concentration camp, where he held a special position as a "prominent prisoner". In April 1945, Kurt von Schuschnigg was transferred to the Dachau concentration camp, where other special and clan prisoners from various concentration camps had also been rounded up as hostages. As the American troops approached Munich towards the end of the war in April 1945, he was taken to Dachau together with 138 other "prominent" prisoners, so-called special prisoners from sixteen nations. Special prisoners from sixteen nations [among them the Protestant theologian Martin Niemöller (imprisoned since 1937) and the later Auxiliary Bishop Johannes Neuhäusler, Munich], under the command of SS-Obersturmführer Edgar Stiller and SS-Untersturmführer Bader, who were ordered to liquidate all prisoners in case of doubt, were marched to the Dolomites in trucks and buses. The prisoner transport initially goes from Dachau via Rosenheim and Kufstein to AEL Reichenau; it arrives in Niederdorf/South Tyrol on April 28, 1945.

A Wehrmacht company called in to help under the command of Captain Wichard von Alvensleben (1902-1982) forces the SS to surrender and withdraw on April 30, 1945. The hostages were freed and taken that evening to the hotel "Lago di Braies" in the South Tyrolean Dolomites at an altitude of 1456 meters, where they were able to move into their rooms. Eighty grenadiers from Toblach stood ready to protect them against Italian partisans and the Gestapo in Klagenfurt.

On May 4, 1945, two days after the surrender of the German troops in Italy, American soldiers from an infantry regiment of the 85th Division of the Fifth US Army arrived at Lake Braies, disarmed the German Wehrmacht soldiers and took them to a prisoner of war camp. In two transports on May 8, 1945 and May 10, 1945, the freed hostages were taken via Verona to Naples, where they were separated by nation. The odyssey ended on the island of Capri.

Kurt von Schuschnigg and his family initially remained in Italy for two years. As he was refused a return to Austria by the Allies and the Austrian government and did not want to "stand in the way" of Austrian domestic policy, he went to St. Louis (Mo.) in the USA as a university professor with a lectureship in international law and Central and Eastern European studies. Louis (Mo) in the USA, became an American citizen and only returned to Austria (to Mutters/Tyrol) in 1967 in the last years of his life.