Reichenburg (Lower Styria)

[Nina van M.]

Hi!

This topic could be propably more interesting to Slovene members (I am hoping you could help me the most - Kocjo, Locke, ... ) of the forum then others, but anyway... I hope I don't ask too much

I would apreciate if someone has any kind of photos, infos, numbers or anything else connected to this village in southern Slovenia (I believe it was the part of Nieder Steiermark), during the period of geman occupation in years 1941- 45. Slovene version is "Rajhenburg". I know that there was settled "Staff for banishment of population", but nothing about the people who were working there or other staff in Reichenburg. It was a small town, but it was important as it seems.

Thank you and greetings, von k.

[K.Kocjancic]

Rajhenburg/Reichenburg/Brestanica

III. Referät/Umsiedlungsstab Marburg a.D.
3. referat, Preseljevalni štab Maribor (CO: SS-Hscha. Fritz Baltrusch) was being moved to Rajhenburg from 29.7. to 2.8.1941.

Positions in Rajhenburg:
a) Burghauptmann: SS-Hscha. Fritz Baltrusch
b) CO of camp: SS-Ostuf. Max Koller
c) Artz: Dr. Georg Lippitt
d) CO of Guard: Pol.Oberwachtmeister Kufner

III. Referät (54 men):
a) Camp HQ:
- CO: Alois Schnideritsch
b) Reception-Office:
- CO: Hans Schreiner
c) Recognition-Department:
- CO: Erich Zezulka
d) Filing-Office:
- CO: Edgar Puhze
e) Traffic-Office:
- CO: Hans Tergletz


Durchschleusungslager Reichenburg
CO: SS-Ustuf. Dr. Franz Straub (born in Bukovina) (14.5.'41 - ?)
Guard Duty: 27 policemen from 72. Res.Pol.Btl. (Maj. Richard Maiwald)

LP,
Klemen

P.S. This was all happening in castle Rajhenburg.

[JLEES]

Was the Austrian provence of Styria the Nazi Gau Steiermark during the Third Reich? I keep finding Steiermark propaganda postcards and have been wondering where this Gau was.
James

[Locke]

Austrian Styria (Steiermark) and Slovenian Štajerska (Untersteiermark) together formed the Gau Steiermark.

Regards,
Polona

[Nina van M.]

Good old Kocjo never lets us down Thanks, I was kind of hoping you'd have the answer

I was wondering...
Why was Umsiedlungsstab moved from Maribor to Brestanica? Was there a particular reason for choosing Brestanica? Was the reason position of the town (because Germans planned to eject the most of inhabitants from Posotelje and Zasavje region)?

LP, Nina

[JLEES]

Polona,
Slovenian Štajerska (Untersteiermark) must have been added in 1941 after the invasion of Jugoslavia, but from 1938-1941 is was just Austrian Styria that was Steiermark. Is that correct?
James

[Nina van M.]

Yes, that's correct James.

Regard, Nina

[K.Kocjancic]

Brestanica or better said it's castle was chosen becuase:
- it was available (it was property of church order of Trapists (redovniki trapisti), but was reclaimed by German army/police);
- it could hold up to 3.000 people,
- it was easy to defend/hard to escape from.

At this time I don't know if the holl Stab was moved to Rajhenburg or just it's III. Referat (responsable for technical execution of resettlement planes).

LP;
Klemen

[JLEES]

Nina,
Thanks!
James

[K.Kocjancic]

For more info try to find:
Ferenc, Tone: Nacistična raznarodovalna politika v Sloveniji v letih 1941 -1945. Knjižnica NOV in POS (35); Maribor, 1968

850 pages of info on resettlement in Slovenia, but informations are scattered all around the book, so you have to read it all.

Regards,
Klemen

[Nina van M.]

I've been to that castle in Brestanica. It looks pretty nice now (it was renewed about a few years ago) but I'd like to know how it looked back then also

Do you have any idea, what happened to those men (you named in your first post) who were employed and working in that Stab, Klemen? What was their fate?
As I can see, some of them were actually Germans, but quite few of them were germanized Slovenes...

How important was (in your opinion) the happening in the castle for average people? What were authorisations of Stab, are you perhaps familliar with them?

LP, Nina

[radevich]

Positions in Rajhenburg:
a) Burghauptmann: SS-Hscha. Fritz Baltrusch

290 365 Fritz BALTRUSCH
SS-Untersturmführer: 09.11.1943
Befehlsblatt des Chefs d.Sich.Pol. u. d. SD Nr. 22/44 from 03.06.1944 "versetzt zum Zentralamt für die Regelung der Judenfrage in Böhmen und Mähren Prag unter Beibehaltung seiner Abordnung zum Dienstelle Theresienstadt“

[Cartaphilus]

Hi all.

Does the German Government claimed the Yugoslav territories of southern Styria and Carinthia for the Reich as integral parts of the former Austrian Empire? Or assumed the Yugoslav sovereignty over these former Austrian areas of Slovenian population?

Thanks for your answers.

[trekker]

Austrian Styria (Steiermark) and Slovenian Štajerska (Untersteiermark) together formed the Gau Steiermark.

Austrian Styria (Steiermark) and Slovene Styria (Štajerska) did not together form Gau Steiermark. They were two different entities as Untersteiermark (Slovene Styria enlarged) was never formally annexed to the Third Reich.
Siegfried Uiberreither was Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter in Steiermark but he was Chef der Zivilverwaltung in Untersteiermark.
In Steiermark there was NSDAP. In Untersteiermark there was no NSDAP, there was Steirischer Heimatbund instead.

[trekker]

Hi all.

Does the German Government claimed the Yugoslav territories of southern Styria and Carinthia for the Reich as integral parts of the former Austrian Empire?

No. German Government didn't make reference to ex Austro-Hungarian Empire. They used national and racial ground instead.
They had made a plan of annexing and germanizing Slovene Styria and Carinthia - Carniola before they occupied them and they started to implement the planned measures immediately.