Gustav Schwarzenegger
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| Gustav Schwarzenegger | |
 Gustav Schwarzenegger in an ID photo from the Austrian State Archives
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| Born | August 17, 1907 Austria-Hungary |
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| Died | December 1, 1972 (aged 65) Steiermark, Austria |
Gustav Schwarzenegger (August 17, 1907 – December 1, 1972) was an Austrian police chief (Gendarmeriekommandant), postal inspector, a senior non-commissioned military police officer, who later became notable as the father of Hollywood star and Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger.
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[edit] Biography
Gustav Schwarzenegger, the father of Arnold Schwarzenegger, married war widow Aurelia Jadrny (July 2, 1922 – August 2, 1998) on October 5, 1945, in Mursteg, Steiermark, Austria. He died in Weiz, Steiermark, Austria at the age of 65, where he had been transferred as a policeman. He is buried in Weiz Cemetery, Weiz, Steiermark, Austria. Aurelia Jadrny Schwarzenegger died of a heart attack at the age of 76 while visiting Weiz Cemetery in 1998 and she is buried next to her husband.
His son, Arnold Schwarzenegger, stated in the film Pumping Iron that he did not attend his father's funeral, but later retracted this, explaining that it was a story he had appropriated from a boxer to make it appear as though he could prevent his personal life from interfering with his athletic training.[1] News reports about Gustav's Nazi links first surfaced in 1990, at which time Arnold asked the Simon Wiesenthal Center, an organization he had long supported, to research his father's past. The Center found Gustav's army records and Nazi party membership, but did not uncover any connection to the notorious paramilitary organization, the Schutzstaffel (SS).[2] Media interest resurfaced when Arnold ran for Governor in the 2003 recall election.
[edit] Nazi Party and SA membership
According to documents obtained in 2003 from the Austrian State Archives by the Los Angeles Times, which was after the expiration of a 30-year seal of his records under Austrian privacy law, Gustav Schwarzenegger voluntarily applied to join the Nazi Party, in 1938, when it was still illegal in Austria. He also voluntarily applied to become a member of the Sturmabteilung (SA), the NSDAP's paramilitary wing, on May 1, 1939 about 6 months after the bloody national pogrom against the Jews and at the time that Jews in Graz (Schwarzenegger's hometown) were being actively rounded up and sent to concentration camps. The Brown Shirts were an organisation that were primarily responsible for the persecution of the Jews and clearing them from Graz, a process called Aryanization. Gustav Schwarzenegger, as a member of the Brown Shirts, probably participated in making his hometown "Judenfrei" - clear of the Jews.[2] Austria became part of the German Reich through the Anschluss on March 12, 1938.
[edit] Military career
Schwarzenegger was a Hauptfeldwebel (about the equivalent of a Company Sergeant Major)[3] with Battalion 521[4] of the Feldgendarmerie, which were military police units attached to regular army units for traffic control, to enforce military law, and battlefield security, only being used to control civilian populations in the combat zone of the German army. Late in the war, such units were also used to impose draconian measures against both "defeatist" German civilians and military personnel alike. Schwarzenegger appears to have received much medical attention and may have contracted malaria during his term of service; he was discharged in 1943.[2]
Ursula Schwarz, a historian at Vienna's Documentation Center for Austrian Resistance, has said that Schwarzenegger's career was fairly typical for his generation[5], and no evidence has emerged that has directly linked him with participation in war crimes or abuses against civilians. He resumed his police career in 1947.
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ Nick Gillespie (July 31, 2003). "Hasta la Vista, Arnold: How Schwarzenegger could have liberated U.S. politics". http://www.reason.com/news/show/32707.html. Retrieved on 2006-11-13.
- ^ a b c Tracy Wilkinson and Matt Lait (August 14, 2003). "Austrian Archives Reveal Nazi Military Role of Actor's Father". Los Angeles Times. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0814-07.htm. Retrieved on 2006-11-14.
- ^ Neither Robert E. Witter's Chain Dogs: The German Army Military Police of World War II,Pictorial Histories Pub. Co., Missoula, MT, ISBN 0-929521-86-2 nor the US Army's G-2 report on the German Police, April 1945 list Hauptfeldwebel as a rank. Hauptfeldwebel is a company-level administrative appointment denoting the senior non-commissioned officer of the unit, and can be held by either of the two highest Feldwebel ranks. Perhaps the confusion is that the -civil [ordnungspolizei]- police rank equivalent to a US Army sergeant major is "hauptwachtmeister", while the -military- police rank equivalent is "stabsfeldwebel", I is what is believe Schwarzenegger's actual rank was.
- ^ Feldgendarmerie abteilung 521 was formed in Vienna, and served in Poland, France, and with 4th Panzer Army in the Ukraine and Western Russia, 1941-44.
- ^ Spotlight Thrown on Nazi Past of Schwarzenegger's Father
- "Records: Arnold's father was member of Nazi storm troops", AP wire services via USA Today 8/24/2003
- "Spotlight Thrown on Nazi Past of Schwarzenegger's Father", Agence France Press 8/23/2003
