In 1943, Kutschera was appointed the SS and Police Leader in German-occupied Warsaw. Due to his crimes against Poles, including Polish Jews, the Polish Home Army, in agreement with the Polish government in exile, targeted him for assassination. On 1 February 1944, he was gunned down in front of the SS headquarters in Warsaw in a special operation by Kedyw, a dedicated resistance special operations unit. In reprisal, the Germans executed 300 Polish civilians.
Kutschera joined the Austrian Nazi Party in December 1930 and the Schutzstaffel (SS) in November 1931. The Nazi Party in Austria was banned in July 1933 by the Austrofascist government of Engelbert Dollfuss. Despite the government ban, Kutschera remained a committed Party activist and was arrested several times by Austrian authorities for illegal pro-Nazi political activities. From 1933 he served as an SS-Truppführer in Carinthia, and he joined the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) in 1934. In July 1935 he was appointed Deputy Commander of the 90th SS-Standarte in Klagenfurt, serving in this capacity until March 1938.
In February 1939, he was also appointed to the People's Court as a lay judge and upon Klausner's sudden death on 12 February, Kutschera was elevated to the post of Acting Gauleiter for Carinthia.
He was promoted to the rank of SS-Brigadeführer in November 1940. During the German Balkan Campaign, on 14 April 1941 Kutschera was named Chief of Civil Administration for Slovenian Carinthia and Upper Carniola, which were administered as part of his Gau, and where he became infamous in the war against the Yugoslav Partisans for his fanaticism and extreme harshness. On 27 November 1941, Kutschera was dismissed as Gauleiter for reportedly plotting to absorb the neighboring Reichsgau Salzburg into his jurisdiction. He was succeeded by his rival, Friedrich Rainer, the Gauleiter in Salzburg.[2]
Warsaw SS and Police leader announcement of execution of 60 Polish hostages and sentencing to death of 40 more, November 1943
On 25 September 1943, Kutschera took office as SS and Police Leader for the Warsaw district of the General Government in occupied Poland. Once in power in Warsaw, he increased the number of roundups (łapanka) of Polish citizens and the number of hostage executions. Every day lists were hung in public announcing the names of the next Poles to be executed in the event of any attack on a German soldier or police officer. These notices were always signed anonymously by the "Commander of the SS and Police at Warsaw District".
Kutschera's exact whereabouts while in Warsaw was a closely guarded secret within the Reich Security Main Office but were discovered in December 1943 by Aleksander Kunicki (Rayski), chief of intelligence for the Agat (Anti-Gestapo) unit of Kedyw. In the course of his routine surveillance of the Gestapo offices on Aleje Szucha, Rayski noticed an Opel Admiral limousine entering the driveway of the nearby Warsaw SS headquarters. The SS officer who emerged from the car wore the clearly identifiable rank and insignia of a Brigadeführer. Intrigued, Rayski began to secretly monitor the mysterious SS man's arrivals and departures from SS headquarters and filed a report with his superiors. An investigation by Kedyw in January 1944 confirmed that the man being observed by Rayski was Franz Kutschera.
Leszczyński Palace Ujazdowskie 23The site of the assassination. Behind the trees is building of Ujazdów Avenue 23 housing Headquarters for Warsaw district of SS and Police where Kutschera was assassinated.
Following his discovery by Rayski, Kutschera was tried in absentia by a secret Special Court of the Polish Underground State. He was charged with crimes against the Polish nation, in particular, the routine mass murder of Polish civilians in Warsaw. Kutschera was convicted and sentenced to death. In London the leadership of the Polish government-in-exile concurred with the decision of the Special Court and approved Kutschera's death sentence. The execution order was soon drafted and relayed to the commander of Kedyw, Brigadier General Emil August Fieldorf (Nil), whose organization had been given the tasks of planning and performing the assassination.
The execution was carried out by the combat-sabotage unit of Kedyw (the predecessor of Battalion Parasol). The assassination team consisted of 12 individual operatives, mostly members of the scouting and guidingGray Ranks.[4] It was planned to carry out the execution in front of the Warsaw SS Headquarters at 23 Ujazdów Avenue. On the morning of 1 February 1944 three Kedyw gunmen: Bronisław Pietraszewicz [pl] (Lot), who was armed with a German MP 40submachine gun; Zdzisław Poradzki [pl] (Kruszynka), carrying a British Sten; and Michał Issajewicz [pl] (Miś), armed with a Luger pistol, ambushed Kutschera as his limousine approached SS Headquarters and opened fire directly into the car. Both Kutschera and his driver were shot multiple times and killed. A gun battle then erupted between the members of the assassination team and the responding German troops in which four Poles and two Germans were killed.
Franz Kutschera funeral in occupied Warsaw 1944
Kutschera's funeral ceremony was held by the Nazis at Brühl palace. Afterwards, his body was laid to rest on Heldenfriedhof part of Powązki Military Cemetery - not moved to Berlin or any part of Germany, as it was thought for decades.[5] On 2 February 1944, the German authorities in Warsaw staged a public execution of 300 Polish civilian hostages as a reprisal for the assassination. The Germans also imposed a crushing 100 million złotytribute on the Polish residents of Warsaw and Warsaw County. Kutschera was succeeded as SS and Police leader by SS-OberführerPaul Otto Geibel in March 1944.
In 1990, during the construction of Aleja Prymasa Tysiąclecia in Warsaw, Kutschera's body was moved (together with over 2000 bodies of German soldiers) to the German military cemetery in Joachimów-Mogiły.[5]
Posthumous wife and son
On 4 February 1944, in Deutsches Haus in Warsaw, Kutschera's pregnant Norwegian girlfriend, Jane Lilian Gjertsdatter Steen, daughter of Gjert Henrik Gjertsen Steen and Magna (or Magda) Anette Hansdatter (née
Gjengstø) Steen posthumously married Kutschera in accordance with pagan rituals.[6][7]
Jane Kutschera (later Rognskog) died in Norway in 1994. Her son, Sepp Kutschera, became an Alpinist, who was the first to climb Koh-e Keshni Khan in the Hindukush mountains, in 1963. He died in 2014.[8]
References
^Michael D. Miller & Andreas Schulz: Gauleiter: The Regional Leaders of the Nazi Party and Their Deputies, 1925-1945, Volume II (Georg Joel - Dr. Bernhard Rust), R. James Bender Publishing, 2017, p. 156, ISBN1-932970-32-0.
Miller, Michael D.; Schulz, Andreas (2017). Gauleiter: The Regional Leaders of the Nazi Party and Their Deputies, 1925-1945. Vol. II (Georg Joel - Dr. Bernhard Rust). R. James Bender Publishing. ISBN978-1-932970-32-6.
Stachniewicz, Piotr (1982) "AKCJA "KUTSCHERA", Książka i Wiedza, Warszawa