80 Years Ago: The Capture of Ernst Kaltenbrunner
How the worst Nazi you've never heard of was apprehended after being plucked from the side of a mountain.
It is the early morning hours of May 12, 1945 in the Austrian Alps near Altaussee.
Austria had become a prime destination for Nazis as the war wound down because of a scheme conceived in late 1943 by SS leader Heinrich Himmler called the National Redoubt (Alpenfestung). or Alpine Fortress plan.
“Redoubt” is defined as an area to which the military forces of a nation can be withdrawn if the main battle has been lost, or even earlier if defeat is considered inevitable. The vision was a heavily fortified area stretching from southern Bavaria across western Austria to northern Italy — a last-ditch Alpine fortress where Hitler’s most fanatical lieutenants might rally for a final stand. As the Allies advanced, Germany’s government and military could retreat into this mountainous region and continue resistance, leveraging the natural defenses of the Alps.
Kaltenbrunner was an Austrian Nazi and high-ranking SS official who played a central role in Nazi Germany’s security and terror apparatus — his full title was SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei Dr. Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Chief of the Security Police and the SD (Sicherheitsdienst), and Chief of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA).
RSHA controlled the Gestapo, Kripo, SD, and the entire machinery of terror, including concentration camps. After the suicides of Hitler and Himmler, Kaltenbrunner was the most powerful Nazi still at large — also, a man whose very identity had been shrouded in secrecy for years, even from much of the Nazi hierarchy itself.
He looked the part, however.
After joining the Nazi Party and SS in 1932, he rose to lead the Austrian SS and, following the 1938 Anschluss (German for “connection” or “joining”), became a key enforcer of Nazi policies in Austria, including the persecution and forced emigration of Jews.
In January 1943, Kaltenbrunner was appointed chief of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), succeeding Reinhard Heydrich. In this role, he oversaw the Gestapo, criminal police (Kripo), and the SS intelligence service (SD), making him one of the main architects and executors of the Holocaust and other war crimes — directly responsible for the operation of concentration camps and the implementation of the “Final Solution,” receiving regular reports on extermination activities and expediting the genocide of European Jews.
Now, however, Kaltenbrunner was hoping to be shielded in Austria via its National Redoubt function. Let the war end and maybe govern a village or two; in the meantime, lay low in the nondescript mountainside village of Alt Aussee, which was nestled in the Totes Gebirge (Dead Mountains).
Also, he’d impregnated his local mistress, Gisella Westarp, and she’d recently given birth to twins in a cowshed.
Pursuit
The hunt for Kaltenbrunner was spearheaded by Special Agent Robert E. Matteson of the U.S. Army’s Counterintelligence Corps (CIC), whose personal motivations were sharpened by the recent death of a close colleague, Alfred Etcheverry, killed in action after Matteson had asked him to cover a meeting in his stead.
Matteson’s pursuit began with the arrest of a local Nazi party leader, which led to the discovery that Kaltenbrunner and other top Nazis had passed through the spa town of Gmunden, heading for the heart of the Redoubt in the Salzkammergut mountains.
The Austrian Freedom Movement, a clandestine anti-Nazi network, proved invaluable. Through their informants, Matteson learned that Kaltenbrunner’s wife and children were hiding in Strobl, a lakeside village. There, Matteson arrested Frau Kaltenbrunner, who provided the first accurate physical description of her husband — his towering height, dueling scars, and powerful build — as well as insight into the Alt Aussee region.
Web of Intrigue: Alt Aussee and the Nazi Inner Circle
It turns out Alt Aussee was no ordinary Alpine village.
It was a sanctuary for Nazi officials, an artist colony, and a repository for the greatest art treasures looted from across Europe, hidden in the local salt mines (enter The Monuments Men).
The town’s social fabric was a tapestry of old Austrian nobility, Nazi officials, and resistance fighters. Prince Chlodwig Hohenlohe, the local aristocrat, played host to both Kaltenbrunner’s mistress, Countess Gisela von Westarp, and Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the Final Solution.
Matteson’s team, aided by the resistance, established an informant network and began rounding up Nazi intelligence officers, including Wilhelm Waneck and Dr. Werner Goettsch. Interrogations revealed that Kaltenbrunner, facing inevitable defeat, had considered forming an anti-communist “Free Austria” to bargain with the Allies. This plan that would later become his alibi at Nuremberg.
The crucial lead came from Johann Brandauer, the assistant mayor of Alt Aussee, who reported that Kaltenbrunner had been seen five days earlier at the Wildensee Hut, a remote mountain cabin. Matteson recruited four local guides — former Wehrmacht soldiers and salt miners — who knew the treacherous trails.
The plan was daring, to say the very least: Once located, Matteson would simply approach the hut alone, disguised as a lost Austrian hiker.
From the memoir of Sgt. Robert Matteson:
We set the plan. According to the guides, it would take us five to six hours to reach the cabin. There would be from 20 to 30 feet of snow in the area and there would be no cover save drifts of snow for the last four kilometers up to the cabin. Therefore, we reasoned that we should leave at midnight so that we would arrive at the cabin under cover of darkness and at a time when the crust on the snow was still hard.
According to our plan, I was to dress in Austrian costume, lederhosen, Alpine jacket and spiked shoes. My idea was that I approach the cabin alone and unarmed, posing as a passer-by over the mountains on my way to Steyrling. This was not at all unreasonable at the time for all transportation had been severed and there were many deserters from the Wehrmacht and many fleeing Nazis whose safest and most expedient mode of travel was by foot over the mountains.
I was to approach alone for the simple reason that the Austrian guides were not willing to accompany me the last 500 yards. I was to approach unarmed so as not to draw fire or arouse suspicion that I might be on a hostile mission.
Finally I thought it would be an inducement to Kaltenbrunner if we found him there to have a note from Gisela urging him to come down and be taken into custody by the Americans rather than let the Russians capture and probably kill him. The Russians at that time had closed in to the Enns River a few miles to the east of us and there was great fear on the part of the civilians that they would soon occupy Aussee.
“The cabin” is also known as Wildensee Hütte, was (and is) a remote Alpine structure surrounded by rugged, snow-covered mountain terrain. The area is above the timberline, and there are indeed patches of snow drifts up to 20–30 feet deep. Because of this hazard and the limited natural cover, you’d best venture up the side of the mountain before dawn while an icy crust remains atop the snow — and hope it supports your weight.
The patrol led by Sgt. Matteson consists now of a squad of American infantry and Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) soldiers, accompanied by the four Austrian mountain guides (who are former Wehrmacht soldiers).
Bundled in heavy winter gear, carrying rifles, ammunition, and some with hand grenades, they undertook a grueling five-hour nighttime ascent through snow and over treacherous mountain trails. The Austrian guides are distinguishable by their local mountain attire and practical climbing equipment.
When Matteson’s crew came within sight of the cabin, the sky was just beginning to lighten, casting a cold, bluish glow over the scene.
Capture
From Matteson’s account:
At 5:00 A.M. we finally reached the pass — 30 feet deep in snow — from where we could see through glasses the Wildensee Huette. There it was just below the crest of the ridge and from every indication it appeared deserted. A dull golden glow by now was cast across the heavens to the east. The question that confronted me was whether we should proceed in full view down the snow-covered slope and up the ridge to the cabin, or whether we should seek cover from the sides of the pass and take a more circuitous route to the cabin. Everybody was thoroughly tired for, though the crust on the snow was hard, very often one or the other foot broke through to a depth of 6 to 18 inches. Because time was running out and because the snow would soon be getting softer, I decided to take the most direct route. Also, to our surprise, we had seen no evidence thus far of SS outposts.
At the hut, he finds four men inside, including Kaltenbrunner, his adjutant Arthur Scheidler, and two SS guards.
Kaltenbrunner, ever the survivor, initially claims to be a Wehrmacht doctor named Dr. Unterwegen, using authentic papers of a deceased man. But the evidence in the cabin is overwhelming: A family photograph, his RSHA identification card, and his infamous Gestapo badge — No. 2, second only to Himmler — are found hidden in the stove’s ashpan.
The ruse was over. All that was left was to march down the mountainside to the village. There, it is said, proof of his identity was sealed when his mistress, Gisela, ran up to embrace him as he was being marched down the main street.
Now available at Little Creek Press — Robert Matteson’s first-person account of the hunt for and capture of Ernst Kaltenbrunner.
