1921 to 1926, receiving a doctorate as well as taking a prominent
part in the student fraternity Arminia, whose boycotts and demon-
strations targeted Jewish students and professors, various foreign
student groups, and the Catholic-monarchist association Carolina.
Dissatisfied with the indecisiveness of the Austrian Home Guard,
Kaltenbrunner switched his membership to the Nazi Party in 1930
and joined the SS three years later. Twice arrested by the Austrian
government, he lost his license to practice law and spent six months
in prison on a conspiracy conviction (the charge of high treason was
dropped after a lengthy investigation).
In recognition of his efforts toward the 1938 Anschluss with
Germany, he was named minister of state security in Austria in the
pro-Nazi cabinet of Arthur Seyss-Inquart and promoted to SS major
general. He soon took command of the police functions in the newly
formed districts of Vienna and the Lower and Upper Danube and also
established an extensive intelligence network extending into south-
eastern Europe. On 30 January 1943, Heinrich Himmler named him
head of the RSHA, thereby giving him control of the Gestapo, the
criminal police, and the Sicherheitsdienst (SD). At his inauguration,
Himmler noted that “a long period in illegality” was “always a good
school, but particularly for a head of the State Security Office.”
While keeping some procedures intact, Kaltenbrunner sought
to expand the SD, even though a deep animosity existed between
him and SD chief Walter Schellenberg (who testified against him
at war’s end). During Kaltenbrunner’s tenure, the SD and Abwehr
merged, resulting in the dismissal of Wilhelm Canaris. Kaltenbrun-
ner also headed the investigation of the failed plot on Adolf Hitler’s
life of 20 July 1944 and played an active role in the implementation
of the Final Solution. A trip to Budapest following the occupation of
Hungary in March 1944 was specifically undertaken to expedite the
deportation of Jews to Auschwitz. Kaltenbrunner took a keen inter-
est in the formal legal regulations and various methods of execution
used in the death camps, particularly the gas chambers. His extreme
harshness further extended to Allied parachutists and prisoners of
war, many of whom perished under his orders.
As the prospect of a German victory grew dimmer, Kaltenbrunner,
with Himmler’s concurrence, dispatched two intermediaries to make
peace overtures to Allen Dulles, the U.S. Office of Strategic Services
KALTENBRUNNER, ERNST • 217