Order regarding measures against Jews in Vienna (1938)

Order from the Führer des SS Oberabschnittes Österreich, Vienna, to all SS units referring to an order of Gauleiter Buerckel that all section leaders were to be responsible for preventing actions by the SS against Jews and that if measures have to be taken against Jews these would be carried out by the authorities and the Gestapo, 5 April 1938.

The Austrian branch of the SS developed in 1934 as a covert force to influence the Anschluss with Germany which would occur in 1938. The early Austrian SS was led by Ernst Kaltenbrunner and Arthur Seyss-Inquart. The Austrian SS was technically under the command of the German SS and Heinrich Himmler but acted independently concerning Austrian affairs.

Austrian SS men served under the same manner as the Allgemeine-SS but operated as an underground organisation, in particular after 1936 when the Austrian government declared the SS an illegal organisation. The Austrian SS used the same rank system as the regular SS, but rarely used uniforms or identifying insignia. Photographic evidence indicates that Austrian SS men typically would wear a swastika armband on civilian clothes, and then only at secret SS meetings.

After 1938, when Austria was annexed by Germany, the Austrian SS was completely incorporated into the regular SS. Most of the Austrian SS was folded into Oberabschnitt Donau with a new concentration camp at Mauthausen opened under the authority of the SS Death's Head units.

N/A

Open

Jewish Central Information Office

Description exists to this archive on the Wiener Library's online catalogue www.wienerlibrary.co.uk.

Copies can be made for personal use. Permission must be sought for publication.

Document captured by the US Third Army.