Among the senior Nazis, one man stood out quite literally. Dr. Ernst Kaltenbrunner was six feet four inches tall and heavily scarred, and from 1942 he served as Heinrich Himmler's second in command.
Born in Austria in October 1903, the son of a lawyer, he was a childhood friend of the future war criminal Adolf Eichmann. Kaltenbrunner obtained a PhD in law from Graz University in 1926 and then opened his own firm in Linz.
The heavy facial scarring he carried until the end of his life came from fencing competitions at university and from injuries suffered in a car accident. He joined the Nazi Party in 1930 and in 1934 married fellow party member Elizabeth Eder, who would not die until 2002. The couple had three children.
The Austrian Nazi Party was a prohibited organization until 1938, and in 1931 Kaltenbrunner had joined the SS. He acted as a legal consultant for the party and in 1933 became head of the Nazi lawyers league in Linz.
He was briefly jailed in 1934 for taking part in a conspiracy against the Austrian government, and jailed again the next year on suspicion of high treason. That charge was dropped, but he received a six-month prison sentence for conspiracy and lost his license to practice law.
After his release, Kaltenbrunner was appointed leader of the Austrian SS and acted as a high-level courier, bringing information out of Austria to his boss Reinhard Heydrich in Bavaria. This got him arrested again in 1937.
Kaltenbrunner played an important role in the Anschluss, the forced union of Austria with Germany, and was rewarded with a high government position in the Austrian government of Dr. Seyss-Inquart in 1938. That year he was also promoted to SS-Brigadeführer and made a member of the German Reichstag.
He was instrumental in setting up the Nazi apparatus in Austria, particularly the Mauthausen concentration camp near Linz. On September 11, 1938, Kaltenbrunner was advanced to the rank of SS-Gruppenführer, equivalent to an army lieutenant general, and made Higher SS and Police Leader of all Austrian SS.
In June 1940 Kaltenbrunner was appointed chief of police in Vienna, and the following month was commissioned into the Waffen-SS as a second lieutenant. His work establishing intelligence networks in Austria brought him to the attention of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, who was seeking a replacement for General Heydrich, assassinated in 1942 in Prague.
Heydrich, Himmler's deputy, had led the Reich Main Security Office in Berlin, commanding the combined forces of the Gestapo, the criminal police, and the SD, the SS Security Service. Kaltenbrunner was appointed to replace Heydrich in June 1942 and promoted by Himmler to SS-Obergruppenführer and general of police in June 1943.
Another important office Kaltenbrunner inherited from Heydrich was president of the International Criminal Police Commission, today's Interpol. He was efficient in tightening the grip of the SS state over Germany as the country began to lose the war and was subjected to very heavy Allied bombing.
Completely loyal to Hitler, whom Kaltenbrunner believed had been sent by God to save Germany, he ruthlessly destroyed enemies of the Nazis and pursued anti-Jewish policies with enthusiasm. The destruction of the Jews gathered pace under his command, and he kept a careful eye on the concentration camp system.
In October 1943 he told SS-Obersturmbannführer Herbert Kappler, chief of German police and security forces in Rome, to get on with eradicating Italy's Jews. Kappler had thousands of them subsequently deported to Auschwitz.
On a personal level, Kaltenbrunner had begun an affair with a member of Himmler's Berlin staff, Countess Gisela von Westarp. In 1944 Kaltenbrunner was part of the negotiations with Hungary that resulted in a new far-right government being established there and the extension of the Final Solution into that Axis country.
His childhood friend Adolf Eichmann began the process of rounding up and deporting 750,000 Hungarian Jews to camps. Kaltenbrunner's most high-profile late-war job was heading the investigation into the assassination attempt on Hitler at the Wolf's Lair on July 20, 1944. In the subsequent mass roundups, 5,000 people were executed and many thousands imprisoned.
In December 1944 Kaltenbrunner was promoted for the final time to General of the Waffen-SS, a military position alongside his political and police positions. A shower of awards went with this promotion: the Knights Cross of the War Merit Cross, a very rarely given German award, the Golden Party Badge, and the Blood Order. Kaltenbrunner had by this point reached the very height of his powers.
However, Kaltenbrunner realized that the writing was on the wall for Nazi Germany following the failures of the Ardennes offensive in the west and the massive Soviet attack in the east that would bring the Red Army to within 100 kilometers of Berlin by February 1945. On April 18, 1945, Himmler named Kaltenbrunner as commander-in-chief of German forces in southern Europe, though he had no military experience.
His mistress, Countess von Westarp, had given birth to twins in March 1945. Kaltenbrunner traveled to Berlin to be present in the Reich Chancellery to celebrate Hitler's last birthday on April 20, with the Red Army now within the city's eastern suburbs.
Kaltenbrunner made himself scarce as soon as he could, retreating to Austria and his command position there. The area of Austria and Bavaria that he commanded was to be part of the so-called National Redoubt, or Alpine Redoubt, largely a creation of propaganda minister Dr. Goebbels to fool the advancing Americans into believing that a long, drawn-out German military resistance would occur in the high Alpine mountains and passes.
The Americans took the bait and diverted considerable military forces into the region in an attempt to quickly crush resistance, though in reality German military resistance was fairly sporadic and light in this area. In the final days of the war in this region of Austria and Bavaria, the Nazis had also secreted huge amounts of wealth, Reichsbank gold and currency, looted art, and evacuated museum collections.
Among the invading troops were intelligence teams from the Counter Intelligence Corps, tasked with finding and arresting top Nazi war criminals. Heading the CIC team attached to the 319th Infantry Regiment, US 80th Infantry Division, was Special Agent Robert E. Matson, accompanied by his interpreter Sydney Bruskin.
On May 3, 1945, the 80th Infantry Division, which had just linked up with Soviet forces at the river, was redirected south into the National Redoubt. Matson had an early success on May 5 when he interrogated the Nazi Party leader in the village of Vorchdorf.
The man told them that the Gauleiter of Upper Austria, August Eigruber, had passed through Vorchdorf headed for Gmunden, a resort town 60 kilometers east of Salzburg. It was outside Matson's area of responsibility, but he pursued the lead, a Gauleiter being a significant prize.
Arriving by jeep in Gmunden, the local police said that a week earlier Gauleiter Eigruber had indeed passed through, accompanied however by two really big fish: Reich Labor Front leader Dr. Robert Ley and Ernst Kaltenbrunner. They were all heading for the Salzkammergut, an area of mountains dotted with salt mines in the heart of the so-called National Redoubt.
Moving out with a US tank battalion, Matson had a firsthand look at the concentration camp at Ebensee, created by Kaltenbrunner as part of the Mauthausen camp complex. On May 6 the CIC agents drove 16 kilometers into the National Redoubt but met no resistance.
At Bad Ischl, a resort town formerly used by Austrian Emperor Franz Josef I, they encountered Austrian Volkssturm troops that had changed sides and were now members of the Austrian Freedom Movement, fighting to free Austria from remaining Nazi influence. Leaving Bruskin at Bad Ischl to organize an informant network, Matson accompanied an Austrian Freedom Movement lieutenant and some of his men, who were still dressed in German uniforms and heavily armed, to the town of Strobl.
The road was clogged with men and vehicles of the Sixth SS Panzer Army in retreat from the Soviets, but the weary Waffen-SS troops paid Matson no heed. Questioning the mayor of Strobl, it looked as though Matson had his quarry, for the mayor said that Kaltenbrunner's party had been staying at a villa on the outskirts of town.
Moving to the estate in two cars, Matson and the Austrian troops walked up to the front door, noting several German military types in civilian clothes who followed them discreetly at a distance but did not try to stop them. The door was opened by a blonde woman in her late thirties, Frau Kaltenbrunner, with her three children.
Of Kaltenbrunner himself there was no sign. Matson placed Elizabeth Kaltenbrunner under arrest and warned her bodyguards, the men in civilian clothes, that US troops would arrive shortly.
Frau Kaltenbrunner and the children were piled into a car, and the chief bodyguard explained that they had been ordered by Kaltenbrunner to safeguard his family. However, he had heard on the radio the American order to all Austrians to turn in their weapons to local mayors' offices, and he had complied. Matson noted that these SS men clearly had no intention of resisting his attempts to take Frau Kaltenbrunner into custody.
In the meantime, Sid Bruskin at Bad Ischl had established that the center of the National Redoubt was the town of Altaussee, nestled 30 kilometers south of Matson's position in the Totes Gebirge, or Dead Mountains. Matson's party drove Frau Kaltenbrunner to the 80th Infantry Division headquarters.
Frau Kaltenbrunner admitted that her husband had been at the villa at Strobl on May 3 and had held a meeting at the house attended by many senior Nazis. These included Gauleiter Reiner of Salzburg, Reich foreign intelligence chiefs Wilhelm Waneck and Wilhelm Höttl, SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny, Hitler's famed commando leader and a personal friend of Kaltenbrunner's.
On May 8, V-E Day, the 80th Infantry Division put together a task force to make its way to Altaussee, consisting of a company of infantry and some Sherman tanks under the command of Major Ralph Pearson. The war may have ended in Europe, but it looked likely that German resistance would continue in the heart of the National Redoubt.
Driving over the Pötschen Pass, the scenery was splendid, with spring meadows and huge snowcapped mountains. Reaching Bad Aussee, the column stopped for a rest. Moving on from Bad Aussee, the road climbed higher and higher into the mountains until, four kilometers on, they arrived at Altaussee, the last major settlement before the Totes Gebirge.
The town sat beside a beautiful Alpine lake with towering peaks beyond. It contained the summer homes of several prominent Nazis such as Himmler's adjutant and a Gauleiter. Local rumors said that Kaltenbrunner, along with other wanted Nazis, had taken refuge in high mountain huts in the Totes Gebirge, but it took quite a time for Matson to pinpoint exactly where Kaltenbrunner was most likely hiding out.
One thing that came to light was an SS radio transmitting station at the Villa Kerry on the outskirts of the town. It was Kaltenbrunner's only remaining method of communication with other Nazi groups in the region, and the CIC men soon seized this and shut it down.
Matson located two important persons closely associated with Kaltenbrunner: his mistress, Countess Gisela von Westarp, and the wife of his adjutant, Arthur Scheidler. They and others mentioned that Kaltenbrunner was with Scheidler and two other SS men.
Before the US column had reached Altaussee, Kaltenbrunner's group had literally taken to the hills, dressed in civilian clothes and well armed. On May 11, Matson finally established where Kaltenbrunner was supposedly hiding: a mountain hut called the Wildensee Hut atop the Totes Gebirge.
Getting there would require a heavy climb of at least five hours, led by four Austrian mountain guides, all of them former German Army mountain troops. Major Pearson insisted that the CIC detachment be accompanied by a squad of US infantry in case Kaltenbrunner and his party resisted arrest.
Matson was given command over the soldiers. He carried with him a note from Countess von Westarp to Kaltenbrunner explaining the situation and telling him he would be safe in US custody.
At 11:30 p.m. on May 11, the team assembled for a final briefing, and at midnight the long hike began. Heavy snow slides covered the route and trees had been swept down. It was an arduous climb, and three of the soldiers were left behind due to injuries received during the hike.
At 5:00 a.m., just before dawn, the team reached the snow-covered pass and could see the Wildensee Hut. The land around it provided little cover, making any kind of approach to the hut difficult without being seen, but the hut itself looked deserted. No smoke came from its chimney and no movement could be seen, with all the shutters firmly locked.
Had Kaltenbrunner moved on? Leaving the guides and the remaining troops behind a snow ridge 300 yards from the cabin, Matson alone crossed to it via the cabin's blind side. He knocked on the front door and then tried it. It was locked.
Then came the sound of a man groaning inside, and Matson hammered on a window shutter. The shutter was opened and a rough-looking man aged about 35 asked what he wanted. Matson asked in German to come in, but the man refused, and Matson instead handed him Countess von Westarp's note.
The man read it and said that he didn't know these people. Matson glanced over his shoulder and saw the four Austrian guides, rifles slung over their shoulders, casually walking up towards the hut. The man in the hut panicked and quickly crossed the room and picked up a pistol, and Matson retreated to the side of the building.
The US infantry, now down to eight men, also moved up and formed a semicircle before the hut, weapons ready. Matson and the others called for the men inside to surrender. For ten minutes this went on and nothing happened, but eventually the door opened and the four men came out with their hands held high.
Among them was the tall, unmistakable figure of Ernst Kaltenbrunner. Inside the hut the Allied troops found four Mauser rifles, four pistols, a large quantity of ammunition, two MP40 machine pistols, and an MG42 machine gun. There was also a large quantity of counterfeit US dollars and British pounds.
In the fire pit they found various interesting items, including Kaltenbrunner's identity card as chief of the Reich Security Main Office and his metal dog tags. However, all four men refused to admit their identities.
At 11:30 in the morning the party and their prisoners arrived back at Altaussee, and when Countess von Westarp and Iris Scheidler ran to embrace their men, it was obvious who they were and they dropped the pretense. Kaltenbrunner and Scheidler were sent on to Third Army headquarters for interrogation.
Sent to London in July 1945, Kaltenbrunner was given the third degree at the notorious MI5-run London Cage, but this treatment actually caused him to clam up and refuse to cooperate at all with his interrogators. Following this he was flown to Nuremberg for trial alongside 20 other senior Nazis.
With Himmler by now dead in British custody, Kaltenbrunner was the most senior surviving SS official, and the other defendants gave him the cold shoulder. They began the process of trying to blame all of the excesses of the Nazi regime on Himmler and his acolytes, to distance themselves from their own culpability.
At the end of the trial, Kaltenbrunner was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He was hanged on October 15, 1946, and his body was cremated and its ashes thrown into a river.