The role of the executive of the security forces in de-nazification

Winfried R. Garscha

Inventory of files and gaps in inventories

The role of the federal police in de-nazification is still surrounded by an aura of secrecy, even though the so-called “Gauakten” (personnel files of the Nazi party Gau leaderships in Vienna and Niederdonau) have long been stored in the Austrian State Archives, and the background of the first, communist leader of the federal police, Heinrich Dürmayer, has been researched. One of the reasons for this is the manner the executive of the security forces handles its own files: they have (still?) not been given to the State Archives, and after Minister for the Interior Franz Löschnak launched a research project to this effect civil servants in the ministry disputed the very existence of these files when approached by researchers.

While Erika Weinzierl, for example, was able to produce a well-founded analysis of the rebuilding of the judicial administration as early as 1980 – supported by the files of the steering committee of the Federal Ministry for Justice – similar steering committee files, but also other documentation in the Ministry for the Interior are not available.

This article attempts to trace the role of the executive of the security services in the de-nazification process, based on a dissertation from 1971 by Ulrike Wetz, which was written with the support of the then president of the Viennese police force, Josef Holaubek, and which had access to numerous files of the Federal Police Headquarters in Vienna which have since been lost, as well as with help from documents about the police service of the Red Army.

The files of the trials of the people's courts, which were held in the Soviet occupation zone from 1945 onwards, are a further important source. From 1946 these were also held in the other occupation zones, not just for Nazi-related crimes, but also for belonging to the outlawed Nazi party before 1938, as well as “registration fraud”. The majority of these files contain documentation of investigations by the police and constabulary.