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He divided the subcommands between Otto Skorzeny, head of the sabotage units, and Wilhelm Waneck, who kept in contact not only with Kaltenbrunner and other centers in Germany, but also with stay-behind agents in the southern European capitals.
Hitler made one of his last appearances on 20 April 1945 outside the bunker, where he pinned medals on boys from the Hitler Youth for their bravery, an event which was partly captured on film.
Present at the ceremony were Goering, Speer, Goebbels, Himmler, Dönitz, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner and a few others.
Realizing the end of the Nazi regime was near, most of them eagerly parted ways.
Kaltenbrunner was among those who fled.
========,3,Altaussee Treasures.
In late April 1945, Kaltenbrunner fled his Berlin headquarters and made his way to Altaussee, where he had often vacationed and had strong ties.
While there, he opposed and thwarted the efforts of local governor August Eigruber to destroy the huge and irreplaceable collection of art stolen by the Nazis from museums and private collections across occupied Europe (more than 6,500 paintings plus statuary) which had been intended for Hitler's planned Führermuseum in Linz.
Ernst Kaltenbrunner's nephew, Michl Kaltenbrunner, said that the Nazis had buried a treasure in Lake Toplitz.
It was also the first time any related family member of Ernst Kaltenbrunner gave information in regards to their relative and the dumping of valuables by the Nazi.
Ernst Kaltenbrunner also allegedly acted in defiance of Hitler's orders in helping to save the artworks stored in the Altaussee salt mines near Lake Toplitz from being destroyed.
Kaltenbrunner's nephew substantiated claims made by Austrian journalist Konrad Kramar in his book "Mission Michelangelo" that Ernst Kaltenbrunner allowed Austrian miners in charge of the area to remove the explosives that were planted to blow the mines up.
Eigruber was determined to carry out what he had determined was Hitler's desire – to prevent the artworks from falling into the hands of "Bolsheviks and Jews" by destroying everything with explosives.
Working with Dr. Emmerin Pöchmüller, the mine overseer, Kaltenbrunner countermanded the order and had the explosives removed.
Thus, such world treasures as Michelangelo's "Madonna of Bruges" stolen from the Church of Our Lady in Bruges, and Jan van Eyck's "Ghent Altarpiece", stolen from Saint Bavo Cathedral in Ghent, as well as Vermeer's "The Astronomer" and "The Art of Painting" were not destroyed.
This claim by Kaltenbrunner's relative is not depicted in George Clooney's "The Monuments Men", in which Kaltenbrunner's character does not appear.
========,2,Recovered evidence.
In 2001, Ernst Kaltenbrunner's personal Nazi security seal was found in an Alpine lake in Styria, Austria, 56 years after he had thrown it away in an effort to hide his identity.
The seal was recovered by a Dutch citizen on vacation.
The seal has the words "Chef der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD" (Chief of the Security Police and SD) engraved on it.
Experts have examined the seal and believe it was discarded in the final days of the war in May 1945.
It was one of Kaltenbrunner's last acts as a free man.
On 12 May 1945, Kaltenbrunner gave himself up, claiming to be a doctor and offering a false name.
However, his mistress chanced to spot him as he was led away, called out his name and rushed to hug him.
This action tipped off the Allied troops, resulting in his trial and execution.
However, according to other sources, Kaltenbrunner's true identity was not discovered by chance.
A first-hand account of the arrest from CIA documents clearly states that the American soldiers who arrested Kaltenbrunner were actively searching for him.
The Americans were highly confident they had the right man when Kaltenbrunner was arrested, even before his mistress removed any lingering doubt.
========,2,Nuremberg trials.
At the Nuremberg trials, Kaltenbrunner was charged with conspiracy to commit crimes against peace, war-crimes and crimes against humanity.
Due to the areas over which he exercised responsibility as a ranking SS general and as chief of the RSHA, he was acquitted of "crimes against peace" but held responsible for "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity".
During the initial stages of the Nuremberg trials, Kaltenbrunner was absent because of two episodes of subarachnoid hemorrhage, which required several weeks of recovery time.
After his health improved, the tribunal denied his request for pardon.
When he was released from a military hospital he pleaded not guilty to the charges of the indictment against him.
Kaltenbrunner stressed during cross-examination that all decrees and legal documents which bore his signature were "rubber-stamped" and filed by his adjutant(s).
Hours were spent in "futile pursuit" to get him to admit that thousands of documents bore his signature; he remained resolute on this matter and even went on to blame Heinrich Müller for illegally fixing his signature on the numerous documents in question.
Several among the accused, particularly members of the military leadership, found the presence of both Julius Streicher and Kaltenbrunner unsavory and ill-suited for their company.
During the trial, Kaltenbrunner argued in his defense that his position as RSHA chief existed only in title and was only committed to matters of espionage and intelligence.
He maintained that Himmler, as his superior, was the person actually culpable for the atrocities committed during his tenure as chief of the RSHA.
Kaltenbrunner also asserted that he had no knowledge of the Final Solution before 1943 and went on to claim that he protested against the ill-treatment of the Jews to Himmler and Hitler.
Further denials from Kaltenbrunner included statements that he knew nothing of the Commissar Order and that he never visited Mauthausen concentration camp, despite witness reports from camp guards who testified otherwise.
Throughout the examinations on stand, Kaltenbrunner was argumentative and confused the court with his circuitous responses.
At one point during the trial, he went so far as to avow that "he" was responsible for bringing the Final Solution to an end.
The International Military Tribunal determined that Kaltenbrunner was a functionary in matters involving the sphere of the RSHA's intelligence network, but the evidence also showed that he was an active authority and participant in many instances of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
On 30 September 1946, the IMT found Kaltenbrunner not guilty of crimes against peace.
However, he was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity (counts three and four).
On 1 October 1946, the IMT sentenced him to death by hanging.
========,2,Execution.
Kaltenbrunner's last words were:
Kaltenbrunner was executed by hanging on 16 October 1946, around 1:15 a.m., in Nuremberg.
His body, as those of the other nine executed men and that of Hermann Göring (who had committed suicide the previous day), was cremated at the Eastern Cemetery in Munich and the ashes were scattered in a tributary of the River Isar.
========,2,In popular culture.
Kaltenbrunner has been portrayed by the following actors in film, television and theater productions, including:
*LIST*.
The character Ernie Kaltenbrunner from the 1985 zombie film "The Return of the Living Dead" was named after Ernst Kaltenbrunner.
========,1,preface.
Engelbert Dollfuss (, ; 4 October 1892 – 25 July 1934) was an Austrian Christian Social and Patriotic Front statesman.
Having served as Minister for Forests and Agriculture, he ascended to Federal Chancellor in 1932 in the midst of a crisis for the conservative government.
In early 1933, he shut down parliament, banned the Austrian Nazi party and assumed dictatorial powers.
Suppressing the Socialist movement in February 1934, he cemented the rule of “austrofascism” through the authoritarian "First of May Constitution".
Dollfuss was assassinated as part of a failed coup attempt by Nazi agents in 1934.
His successor Kurt Schuschnigg maintained the regime until Adolf Hitler's annexation of Austria in 1938.
========,2,Early life.
He was born in Texing in Lower Austria to unmarried mother Josepha Dollfuss and her lover Joseph Weninger.
The couple, of peasant origin, was unable to get married due to financial problems.
A few months after her son’s birth, Josepha married landowner Leopold Schmutz in Kirnberg, who did not, however, adopt Engelbert as his own child.
Dollfuss, who was raised as a devout Roman Catholic, received a scholarship for the minor seminary of the Archdiocese of Vienna in Hollabrunn in 1904.
Having obtained his "Matura" degree in 1913, he first decided to continue his studies at the Vienna seminary but subsequently switched to study law at the University of Vienna.
At the outbreak of World War I, Dollfuss had difficulty gaining admission into the Austro-Hungarian Army as he was only tall.
Indeed, according to the "New York Times", who reported a series of jokes, including how in the coffee houses of Vienna, one could order a “Dollfuss” cup of coffee instead of a "Short Black" cup of coffee (black being the color of the Christian Democratic political faction), Dollfuss stood no more than tall.
Dollfuss’ diminutive status would remain an object of satire all his life; among his nicknames were 'Millimetternich' (making a portmanteau out of millimeter and Metternich), and the “Jockey’.
In contrast to his own diminutive stature, his personal assistant and secretary Eduard Hedvicek, who later played a significant role in the unsuccessful attempt to save his life, was a very large and tall man ().
Dollfuss was eventually accepted and joined the Tyrolean "Landesschützen" regiment at Brixen and by the end of 1914 was sent to the Italian Front.
Serving as commander of a machine gun artillery division, he was a highly decorated soldier and was briefly taken by the Italian forces as a prisoner of war in 1918.
After the war he returned to studies in Vienna, joining a Catholic male student fraternity ("Studentenverbindung"), became co-founder of the German Student Union in Austria and acted as a representative at the "Cartellverband" umbrella organization.
Together with occasional allies like Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Robert Hohlbaum and Hermann Neubacher, he distinguished himself as a German nationalist and antisemite.
From 1919 he worked as secretary of the Austrian Farmers’ Association ("Bauernbund") and was sent to study economics at the University of Berlin.
There Engelbert met Alwine Glienke (1897–1973), a German woman from a Protestant family, whom he married in 1921.
The couple had one son and two daughters, with one daughter dying during early childhood.
Dollfuss finished his studies and obtained the doctor of law degree in 1922.
He worked as a secretary of the Lower Austrian Chamber of Agriculture and in 1927 became its director.
A great admirer of Karl Freiherr von Vogelsang’s teachings, he became a member of the conservative Christian Social Party (CS) and promoted the establishment of agricultural cooperatives as well as the implementation of social insurance and unemployment benefits for farm workers against inner party disapproval.
At the instigation of his party colleague Chancellor Carl Vaugoin, he was appointed president of the Austrian Federal Railways in 1930 (Dollfuss would push off Vaugoin to this post three years later).
In the 1930 legislative election, the Social Democrats emerged as the strongest party and Vaugoin resigned as chancellor.
In March 1931, Dollfuss was named Minister of Agriculture and Forests in the short-lived coalition cabinet of Chancellor Otto Ender.
When Ender resigned a few months later at the height of the "Creditanstalt" affair, he maintained this office under Ender's successor Karl Buresch.
However, the political situation became more and more unstable after a failed "Heimwehr" coup d'état and the Nazi Party reaching a significant level of votes in several "Landtag" elections.
The CS lost its Greater German allies in parliament and when the Social Democrats requested the dissolution of the National Council, the Buresch cabinet resigned on 20 May 1932.
========,2,Chancellor of Austria.
On 10 May 1932, Dollfuss, age 39 and with only one year’s experience in the Federal Government, was offered the office of Chancellor by President Wilhelm Miklas, also a member of the Christian-Social Party.
Accordingly, Dollfuss refused to reply, instead spending the night in his favorite church praying, returning in the morning for a bath and a spartan meal before replying to the President he would accept the offer.
Dollfuss was sworn in on 20 May 1932 as head of a coalition government between the Christian-Social Party, the Landbund — a right-wing agrarian party — and Heimatblock, the parliamentary wing of the "Heimwehr", a paramilitary ultra-nationalist group.
The coalition assumed the pressing task of tackling the problems of the Great Depression.
Much of the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s industry had been situated in the areas that became part of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia after World War I as a result of the Treaty of Saint-Germain.
Postwar Austria was therefore economically disadvantaged.
Dollfuss’ majority in Parliament was marginal; his government had only a one-vote majority.
========,2,Dollfuss as dictator of Austria.
In March 1933, an argument arose over irregularities in the voting procedure.
The Social Democratic president of the National Council (the lower house of parliament) Karl Renner resigned to be able to cast a vote as a parliament member.
As a consequence, the two vice presidents, belonging to other parties, resigned as well to be able to vote.

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