Franz Zelburg

Franz Zelburg (Zivny) first attended secondary school and then the infantry cadet school in Graz. He embarked on a career as a professional officer in the gendarmerie officer corps and was discharged in 1902 as a cadet officer deputy (= ensign). He takes up the post of k. u. k. Gendarmerie-Rittmeister (= captain) in the First World War in Galicia and on the south-western front. In the meantime (probably around 1916) he changes his name to Zelburg. In 1924 he was promoted to Gendarmerie-Oberinspektor I. Klasse (= Major) and served as Provincial Gendarmerie Commander of Styria.

In January 1934 he was appointed to the newly created office of Security Director for the Province of Styria (until January 1936), and in 1937 he was assigned to the Federal Chancellery. In 1937, he was one of the founding members of the Ferdinandea student fraternity in Graz. On January 3, 1938, he was appointed Inspector General of the Austrian Federal Gendarmerie in Vienna.

After the Anschluss, Franz Zelburg was arrested in March 1938 and transferred to the Dachau concentration camp on April 1, 1938 on the "Prominenten-transport", no. 94 on the Gestapo list. On July 5, 1939, he was transferred to Graz Regional Court. Here he is charged with "abuse of official authority" in connection with the prosecution of Nazi crimes from 1934 to 1938. On July 21, 1939, the Graz Regional Court sentenced him to eight years' hard labor, while the Reich Court reduced the sentence to three years' hard labor on January 12, 1940. Franz Zelburg served his sentence in Graz-Karlau until May 24, 1941 and was then transferred to the Graz Gestapo. He is released from prison on June 20, 1941 due to illness (stroke).