Ernst Kaltenbrunner
Austrian SS official, a major perpetrator of the Holocaust and convicted war criminal (1903-1946) · Austria · Politicians · Died at 43
Ernst Kaltenbrunner is read about 2,086 times a day, in 54 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 22 October 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 397 days, one point a day.
Something wrong?He ran the Reich Security Main Office from 1943 to war's end - the apparatus that fused Gestapo, criminal police, and intelligence into the machinery of the Holocaust. The highest-ranking SS officer to stand trial at Nuremberg.
A life in dates
Also in Deutsch
Photos 8
.jpg?width=1200)
Ernst Kaltenbrunner (1943)
Bundesarchiv Bild 121-0492, Wien, Einweihung, Polizeikrankenhaus
Bundesarchiv Bild 121-0493, Wien, Einweihung, Polizeikrankenhaus
Bundesarchiv Bild 101III-Zschaeckel-112-04A, Wien, Technische Führerkorps-Schule
Bundesarchiv Bild 101III-Zschaeckel-112-08A, Wien, TFK-Schule, Krüger, Kaltenbrunner
Bundesarchiv Bild 183-45534-0005, Kz Mauthausen, Besuch Heinrich Himmler, Franz Ziereis.jpg?width=1200)
Bundesarchiv Bild 192-028, KZ Mauthausen, Himmler, Kaltenbrunner, Eigruber (cropped)
Bundesarchiv Bild 192-028, KZ Mauthausen, Himmler, Kaltenbrunner, EigruberIn their own words 10
, I have loved my German people and my fatherland with a warm heart.
I do not feel guilty of any war crimes, I have only done my duty as an intelligence organ, and I refuse to serve as an ersatz for Himmler.
Oppression is the essence of power.
Awards
About this person
Kaltenbrunner joined the Nazi Party in 1930 and the SS in 1931, rising to lead the Austrian SS by 1935. He helped execute the Anschluss in 1938 and took command of SS and police forces in Austria. In January 1943, after Reinhard Heydrich's assassination, he was named third chief of the Reich Security Main Office. Under his leadership the Holocaust intensified: he coordinated the agencies that carried out extermination, crushed resistance in occupied territories, and oversaw mass arrests, deportations, and executions. At Nuremberg he was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He was hanged on 16 October 1946, ten days after his forty-third birthday.
Fame.am measures public visibility signals. It does not measure human value, talent, morality, or credibility.