Seyß-Inquart, Arthur#

b. Stonařov, Czech Republic (then Stannern) near Jihlava (then Iglau), July 22, 1892, d. Nuremberg (Germany), Oct. 16, 1946 (executed). Lawyer and National-Socialist politician. Member of Catholic-national associations, from 1931 contacts with the NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers´ Party); member in 1938. In 1937 he was appointed member of the State Council to ensure contact with the national opposition, on February 16, 1938, after the negotiations between K. Schuschnigg and A. Hitler in Berchtesgaden, Minister of the Interior. When Schuschnigg stepped down on March 11, 1938 S.-I. became Chancellor and formed the National-Socialist government, which passed the law on the Anschluss, the incorporation of Austria into the German Reich on March 13, 1938. The government had the following composition: Vice-Chancellor Edmund Glaise-Horstenau; Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs Wilhelm Wolff; Federal Minister of Justice Franz Hueber; Federal Minister of Education Oswald Menghin; Federal Minister of Social Administration Hugo Jury; Federal Minister of Finance Rudolf Neumayer; Federal Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Anton Reinthaller; Federal Minister of Commerce and Transport Hans Fischboeck; the Federal Ministry of Defense was headed by Chancellor S.-I.; State Secretary of Security chief constable Michael Skubl (stepped down); assistant to the Chancellor for matters of public security Ernst Kaltenbrunner (leader of the Austrian SS); for matters of information and education of the public Major Hubert Klausner (head of the Austrian NSDAP).

S.-I. was head of the Austrian government (with the title of Reich Governor (Reichsstatthalter)), in the rank of an SS Colonel General, from March 15, 1938 to April 30, 1939 he became head of the Austrian government, which had been reduced in size in May 1938 and was to eliminate centres of the opposition in Austria; the government was substantially curtailed by Reich Governor J. Buerckel and dissolved by the Ostmark law, which entered into force on May 1, 1939. S.-I. was Minister of the German Reich without portfolio between 1939-1945. He was Reich Commissioner for the occupied Netherlands 1940-1945. S.-I. was responsible for the shootings of hostages, oppression of the population and deportations of Jews. He was sentenced to death for these crimes in the Nuremberg trials.

Literature#