Hans Fischböck papers

Hans Fischböck (1895-1967, also known as Juan Carlos Fischböck and Jakob or Jacobo Schramm) was born on January 24, 1895 in Geras in Lower Austria as the son of a judge. In 1896 his parents relocated to Vienna, Austria where he went to elementary school and graduated from high school (Gymnasium). After his service in World War I, he studied law in Vienna and earned a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree. After his studies, Fischböck made a career in the 1930s in the banking and insurance business, specializing in bankruptcy cases. In this capacity, Fischböck met Arthur Seyss-Inquart, a fellow German nationalist who would become Nazi Governor (Reichsstatthalter) of Nazi-annexed Austria and Reich Commissioner (Reichskommissar) for the Nazi-occupied Netherlands. By the spring of 1938, Fischböck was among Seyss-Inquart’s closest circle of confidants. Shortly before the Anschluss and responding to German pressure, the administration of Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg appointed Fischböck as State Councilor for Economic Relations with the German Reich (Staatsrat für die Wirtschaftsbeziehungen zum Deutschen Reich). After Schuschnigg’s resignation, Fischböck became the Minister of Trade in Seyss-Inquart’s cabinet. In May 1938, Fischböck was appointed Minister of Economic Affairs with control over the “Vermögensverkehrsstelle” and the Aryanization of Jewish properties and assets in Nazi-annexed Austria. A day after “Kristallnacht,” the November 1938 pogrom, Fischböck, together with Reinhard Heydrich, Josef Goebbels, and Reich Minister for Economic Affairs Walther Funk, participated in a meeting convened by Hermann Göring during which Fischböck described the methods by which Jewish property had been successfully expropriated in Nazi-annexed Austria and during which he proposed further aryanizations and enhanced economic measures against the Jews. In May 1939, Fischböck was appointed Commissioner General for Finance and Economic Affairs (General-Kommissar für Finanz und Wirtschaft) in The Hague, Netherlands. Fischböck became a member of the SS that same year with the rank of Oberführer (in 1941, Fischböck was promoted to SS-Brigadeführer). In the spring of 1942, Fischböck became State Secretary and Reich Commissioner for Price Control for the Nazi-occupied Netherlands (Staatssekretär und Reichskommissar für die Preisbildung). In this capacity, Fischböck set up a foreign currency protection unit that worked closely with the Reichsbank and the RSHA in the plundering of Jewish assets and in Jewish extortion. In due course, he joined the Armaments Ministry as “stellvertretender Leiter des Planungs- und Rohstoffamtes” and became the deputy of Hans Kehrl, the Ministry’s most powerful official. Fischböck belonged to the Freundeskreis Reichsführer-SS, a group of German industrials who sought to influence Third Reich economic policy. After the war, Fischböck lived under a fake name in Munich until 1950 when he escaped with his family to Latin America. Krunoslav Stjepan Draganović, a Croatian Roman Catholic priest active in the Nazi escape network, personally signed Fischböck’s application for a Red Cross passport. Under the fake name of Jakob (Jacobo) Schramm, Fischböck arrived in Buenos Aires on February 2, 1951 from Genoa, Italy. He found employment in the firm of the former Waffen-SS commander Karl Nicolussi-Leck. Much of the work of Nicolussi-Leck’s firm came from the German industrial conglomerate Mannesmann. Around 1953, Fischböck, who had since acquired Argentine citizenship, felt secure enough to revert back to his real name and in 1954 he applied for his old Austrian citizenship. Although the Austrian authorities did not honor Fischböck’s request, they did not seek extradition although a case against Fischböck was pending before the Austrian peoples’ court due to §§ 10, 11 VG (Illegalität), § 8 KVG (Hochverrat am österr. Volk) und § 58 StG (Hochverrat) (see: USHMM RG-17.003M, LG Wien Vg 7c Vr 2197/49 gg. Dr. Hans FISCHBÖCK). In 1957, the Austrian Nazi amnesty took effect. Hans Fischböck and his wife Eva (1911-1975) and son Wolfgang Schramm led a comfortable middle-class life in Buenos Aires with homes at 2473 Arenales street in the Buenos Aires suburb of Florida, and at 1761 Gaspar Campos Street in the suburb of Vicente Lopez. They appear to have maintained a close circle of German friends and former associates, Adolf Eichmann among them (for a time Eichmann’s office on the Avenida de Córdoba in downtown Buenos Aires was one floor below Fischböck’s). After Eichmann’s capture, Mrs. Fischböck is reported to have said that she was one of the last people to have spoken to him. Around 1960, Hans Fischböck and his wife returned to Germany where Fischböck worked as a consultant to a steel concern in Essen. In 1966, following a lead by Simon Wiesenthal, a Dutch journalist revealed Fischböck’s whereabouts in Essen by publishing an interview that he had conducted with Fischböck during an unscheduled visit to his residence. Subsequently, it was reported that the Netherlands were issuing a request for Fischböck’s extradition but he was never prosecuted. He died on June 3, 1967 in Wehrda, Kreis Marburg an der Lahn. Sources: 1. Goñi, Uki. The Real Odessa: How Perón Brought the Nazi War Criminals to Argentina. London: New York: Granta, 2002 2. Graf, Wolfgang. Österreichische SS-Generäle. Himmlers verlässliche Vasallen. Klagenfurt = Celovec: Hermagoras Verein = Mohorjeva založba, 2012. 3. Klee, Ernst. Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich: wer war was vor und nach 1945? Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2003 4. Stangneth, Bettina. Eichmann Before Jerusalem: The Unexamined Life of a Mass Murderer. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014 5. Steinacher, Gerald. Nazis on the Run: How Hitler’s Henchmen Fled Justice. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. The Hans Fischböck papers consist of correspondence, official documentation, biographical materials, and photographs, documenting Fischböck's National Socialist career which involved the systematic expropriation and Aryanization of Jewish properties and assets in Nazi-annexed Austria and the Nazi-occupied Netherlands; Fischböck's flight to Argentina after the war; his life and work in Latin America; and his eventual return to Germany and Austria. It contains official certificates of promotion and commendations issued to Hans Fischböck by high-ranking Nazi officials including Adolf Hitler, Hans Frank, and Walther Funk; official communication from Austrian politicians in the days before the Anschluss, such as Austrian President Wilhelm Miklas and Minister for Commerce and Transportation Julius Raab, and from Reichsstatthalter Arthur Seiss-Inquart following the annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany; post-war papers and photographs from Latin America including official documents issued by Latin American authorities, some of which bear fake names for Hans Fischböck, his wife, and their son; correspondence and protocols of meetings in Buenos Aires between Mannesmann GmbH and Nicolussi SRL Aspersion concerning Fischböck; personal photographs from the 1930s until ca. 1965; biographical documentation including Fischböck’s family tree compiled for his SS membership application; and newspaper clippings about the international search for Hans Fischböck and the discovery of his whereabouts in Germany in 1966. Series 1. Biographical material of Fischböck includes handwritten curriculum vitae from 1940, a telegram regarding his death in 1967 and his printed death notice. Genealogical documents consist of records related to Hans Fischböck’s ancestors, including birth, death, and marriage certificates dating to the 1800s, family trees, and his SS-Ahnentafel documentation. Some records bear German and Argentine authenticity certifications. Also included are postcards, the bulk of which are from the 1950s, from friends and family addressed to Hans and Eva Fischböck in Buenos Aires as well as postcards sent by Fischböck to his wife from Germany, Austria, Italy and Brazil. Includes at least one postcard from Essen, Germany written in 1959 by Hans to Eva in which he informs her of successful meetings. They settled in Essen around 1960. Additionally, there are clippings, including a 1966 interview published in the Salzburger Nachrichten, June 24, 1967 and newspaper clippings pertaining to the search for Hans Fischböck by Simon Wiesenthal. Series 2. Nazi documents consists of certificates, correspondence, and position appointments relating to Hans Fischböck’s Nazi career. Correspondence contains a letter dated February 18, 1938 from the Austrian Minister for Commerce and Transportation Julius Raab addressed to Generalsekretär Hans Fischböck appointing him as a consultant in matters dealing with economic relations to the German Reich; communication dated March 11, 1938 addressed to Staatsrat Dr. Hans Fischböck from Austrian President Wilhelm Miklas and countersigned by Arthur Seiss-Inquart in which Miklas informs Fischböck that he appoints him “on the recommendation of the Chancellor” (i.e. Seiss-Inquart) as Federal Minister for Commerce and Transportation; and a letter dated June 11, 1938 from Reichsstatthalter Arthur Seiss-Inquart addressed to Minister Hans Fischböck concerning his compensation. Position appointments signed by various officials include: kommissarischer Präsident der Industrie- und Handelskammer Wien; kommissarischer Leiter der Wirtschaftskammer Wien; Vorsitzender des Vorstands der Österreichischen Kreditanstalt; Wehrwirtschaftsführer; Ratsherr der Stadt Wien; Mitglied des Beirats der Deutschen Reichsbank; Staatsrat; Beirat für die Angelegenheiten der Kämmerei Wien. Series 3. Latin American documents include affidavits of identification, visas and immigration paperwork, passports, identification cards and papers related to Hans Fischböck, his wife Eva, and son Wolfgang after they immigrated to Argentina in 1951 under false identities. The affidavits include one (“Testimonio”) dated August 21, 1953 and protocolled by the Argentine authorities which states that Jacobo Schramm is an alias for Juan Carlos Cristián Fischböck and that they are one and the same person, that his wife is Eva Susana Waldtraut Kristen and not Frieda Eva Kristen de Schramm and that their son is Wolfgang Fischböck and not Wolfgang Schramm. Supporting documentation. Thermal copies of an affidavit dated August 21, 1953 differ, but are protocolled by the Argentine authorities which states that Jacobo Schramm is an alias for Juan Carlos Cristián Fischböck and that they are one and the same person, with attached official documentation and handwritten curriculum vitaes for Juan Carlos Cristián Fischböck and Eva Susana Waldtraut Kristen. The thermal copies of the curriculum vitaes bear the stamp of the Buenos Aires Civil Registry office on the back, dated June 3, 1954. Photocopies of same affidavit bearing the authenticity stamp of the Argentine “Division Prontuarios” dated December 4, 1989. Series 4. Photographs include a photograph album and loose photographs depicting Hans Fischböck and his family in Austria, Germany, and Buenos Aires. Where there are some photographs in the late 1930s or early 1940s, the bulk are post-war. The photograph album included a depiction of Fischböck in the late 1930s/early 1940s sitting at his desk in his office, most likely either in Vienna or in The Hague; Fischböck in the 1950s sitting at his desk in the office of the Nicolussi firm in Buenos Aires; family and friends in Europe; the Fischböck family in Buenos Aires, and on vacation in Latin America; and Eva Fischböck and her son Wolfgang spending the winter holidays with her parents in Germany, 1951. Loose photographs include depictions of the Fischböck family in Buenos Aires and possibly Germany, social events with friends, a group photograph labeled by typewriter on back “Verlobung im Hause Elleder 20.10.1956” and handwritten on back “Von links nach rechts. Dipl. Ing. Elleder (Wolfis Firmpate) neben Hans, der keinen Bart hat und in Wirklichkeit schöner ist. Eva, elegant aufgezäumt mit Federhütchen und vollem Schmuck. Frau Elleder, Generaldirektor May (oller Berliner!) von Mannesmann”; and a group photograph depicting Hans, Eva, and Wolfgang Fischböck on the tarmac in front of a Lufthansa jet with several other persons. Handwritten in pencil on the back: “Ruth Keichl [?] Wolfgang Hans Eva Fischböck Hans Keichl [?] Carlos Stanger [?].”