3.3 - The Administration Appointed by the Military Authorities

The Administration Appointed by the Military Authorities

Hubert Erhart was a confirmed National Socialist and extremely ambitious. As acting administrator and leader of the expropriated monastery at St. Lambrecht he managed to considerably expand his sphere of power by seizing the monastery at Admont in 1938 and the monasteries at Seckau and Vorau in 1940.¹

Hubert Erhart was born in Leoben, Austria, on 3 January 1899 and took his finals at the Staatsrealschule in Bruck an der Mur. After graduating from the Higher school for forestry, also at Bruck an der Mur, he attended the school for reserve officers at Windisch-Feistritz. During World War I he served in the Gebirgsschützenregiment Nr. 1² in 1917 and 1918. After the end of the monarchy Erhart entered the army in November 1918 and stayed there for two months. In 1919 he took part in the Kärntner Abwehrkampf³ within the framework of the Student Battalion and therefore was awarded the Carinthian Cross for Courage.⁴ In 1921 Erhart found a job as an official at the lumbermill at Niklasdorf and he became a member of the national German Gymnastics Association.

On 1 October 1922 he became the administrator of a newly built and modern lumbermill in Mautern near Leoben, where he was in charge of a work force averaging 50 men. ‘Tirelessly [he dedicated himself to the] elevation of the working class and he succeeded in raising it completely to the national level.’⁵

According to him he became a member of the NSDAP in 1923. He only worked as a party member for a short time because the NSDAP split into several groups. Erhart felt that the party thereby weakened its decisiveness, and membership no longer appealed to him. From 1924 onwards Erhart worked incessantly at the side of Walter Pfrimer for the Styrian Heimatschutz (or Homeland Protection). As of 1927 he took part in many marches, including suchlike in the Viennese Neustadt, Leoben, Bruck, Graz, Knittelfeld and Rottenmann as a voluntary soldier, Gauführer of the municipality of Liesingtal. He supplied all equipment, arms and training of his command. In 1928 he took over military leadership of the regions of Liesingtal and St. Michael.

In 1931, on 13 September, Erhart at Pfrimer’s side, attempted to seize power. The coup failed. In May 1933⁶ he was sentenced to a week’s detention and a fine for participating in a protest march. After the Styrian Heimatschutz joined the NSDAP in 1933, Hubert Erhart became SA-Sturmbannführer for the above-mentioned region. In this capacity he – in his own words – established two SA battalions, a motorised battalion and an SA reserve battalion, which in spite of a police ban allegedly had 550 members.⁷ Additionally, it was Erhart’s intention to restore the regional enterprises to ‘Aryan’ hands, as he indicated in his biography:

‘During the ban, supplies to the Reich were made almost exclusively by Jewish merchants. They kept the profits entirely for themselves and forced prices far below cost price from the producers. This threatened the wood industry, which was Aryan for the most part and of which the workers and staff were almost without exception National Socialists, with total ruin (85% of the enterprises had already been brought to a complete stop by the end of 1933). I worked therefore to establish an Aryan sales organization, a department of wood industry. Then the people’s representative Sepp Heinzel and I worked out the commercial part of this plan in Pöls near Judenburg. The plan was then submitted by Heinzel to state minister Darre [sic] in December 1933 and was also sent by courier to the regional centre at Munich. A copy that I sent to SA-Brigadeführer Kammerhofer, was confiscated by the authorities and I was sentenced for continuing forbidden party activities to four weeks detention and a fine of S 100.’⁸

At the Juliputsch by the National Socialists Erhart with his Sturmbann V occupied the towns of Kraubath and St. Stefan on 25 July 1934. At St. Michael, above Leoben and Mautern, battles took place, costing several human lives. After a day the rebels gave up and Erhart with Kammerhofer fled to the mountains, where they stayed in a tree-bark shack built by their own hands until 29 July. After a warrant for his arrest Erhart decided to flee to Yugoslavia, and had his family join him there.⁹

In Yugoslavia Erhart reported to the refugee aid. There he worked as a manager at the department for family care at the refugee office in Marburg in August 1934. After this he worked for three months – until the departure of the refugees to the ‘Reich’ – as head manager for public safety of refugee camps in Yugoslavia.¹⁰ A testimony of Erhart’s diligence exists, which again shows his National Socialist involvement:

‘We herewith confirm that party member Hubert Erhart functioned at the refugee office in Marburg as department manager for family care during the period from 30 July 1934 until 22 August 1934, and subsequently from 23 August until 28 November 1934 (until the departure of the refugees to the Reich) first as head manager for the economic division and then as head manager for the entire public security of the refugee camps in Yugoslavia.

‘Party member Erhart has always performed his duties totally in the National Socialist spirit and distinguished himself by his great diligence.’¹¹

Together with his family Erhart went to Munich and Rummelsburg, where, disappointed by the SA, he joined the Schutzstaffel and where he acted as acting camp leader.¹² From here he quickly managed to make a career for himself within the NSDAP. Other party members, driven by jealousy, tried to prevent this.

Erhart was accused of serious transgressions against National Socialism by party members Oberhaidacher, Plachotta and Lackner. At that time Erhart was transferred to the SS border patrol in Munich. The accusations were mainly based on a missing formal party membership in Erhart’s name. A letter by Ortsgruppenleiter¹³ Friedrich Lackner states it thus:

‘Until 15 July 1933 he could not be moved to become a member of the NSDAP. Until the take-over of power [… he] dedicated himself exclusively to purposes regarding the conservation of Styrian monuments.’¹⁴

At the end of May 1936, a disciplinary legal procedure before the SS law court IIIa/G 131 against him was stopped. The documents on this case are marked ‘secret’.¹⁵ Decisive for the discontinuation of the procedure was the fact that Erhart had led the SA-Brigade Obersteiermark and until ‘the events of July 1934’ had belonged to the SA-Sturmbann V/3 Mautern.

‘Therewith for him […], in our opinion the formal joining of the SA and therefore the NSDAP was a fact. Hubert Erhart as leader of the Sturmbann has functioned extremely well. […] After the failure of the people’s rebellion of July 1934 he had to flee to the Reich because he was under suspicion.’¹⁶

Erhart however did not flee to the ‘Reich’, but – as described above – to what was then the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and there ended up at the central relief centre for refugees.

Erhart had succeeded in rising to Sturmbannführer already in 1935:

‘SS-Sturmbannführer Erhart was appointed according to RFSS/Pers. 20574 as head at the SS meeting place (head of SS border patrol) as from 25-10-1935.

‘On 19-03-1936 Stubaf. Erhart was transferred to the SS Department VII Königsberg.’¹⁷

From October 1936, Erhart was already working his way into the SS Division I as a Standartenführer. In March 1937 Erhart was appointed to replace Standartenführer Hebron, who had taken ill, as stated in communications by SS-Brigadeführer¹⁸ Diehm to the personnel department in Berlin.¹⁹ From Diehm he also received an exemplary testimonial of his devotion in accordance with the National Socialist spirit. This may have had a favourable influence on his career and may have made it possible that he later attained the position of administrator of the confiscated monasteries. The next step on his career ladder followed on 12 September 1937: Himmler promoted Erhart to SS-Obersturmführer.²⁰

The SS staff report describes Erhart as a ‘Dinaric figure’ with a calm, open and cautious character. Erhart, an energetic type of man, knew how to get his own way. This he would prove in the course of his administrative career at St. Lambrecht. The Nazi leaders regarded him as a confirmed fighter for National Socialism who acted correctly, both within and outside the scope of his employment.²¹ The inhabitants of St. Lambrecht seem to have had great respect for the administrator. Seiler spoke with his contemporaries from the local population about this. According to them Erhart was a fair and honest person.²²

In July 1938 Erhart informed the Reichskanzlei²³ that he was going to move with his family²⁴ from Munich to St. Lambrecht in order to take over the administration of the monastery there. Here in his own native country Hubert Erhart successfully continued his party career, partly due to his own commitment. From 21 June 1944 Obersturmbannführer Erhart, reserve officer of the Waffen-SS, held the rank of SS-Standartenfüher.²⁵ This promotion came about as the result of ‘extraordinary and independently developed activities’²⁶ in the field of Nazi interests.

After the end of the National Socialist rule Hubert Erhart was arrested and on 4 December 1948 the court at Graz sentenced him to three years’ imprisonment.²⁷

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3.3 - The Administration Appointed by the Military Authorities

The Administration Appointed by the Military Authorities

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