Walter Schimana

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Walter Schimana
Walter Schimana.jpg
Birth date 12 March 1898
Place of birth Troppau, Silesia, Austria-Hungary
Death date 12 September 1948 (aged 50)
Place of death Salzburg, Allied-occupied Austria
Allegiance  Austria-Hungary
 Weimar Republic
 National Socialist Germany
Service/branch Gelbe Fahne der k. u. k. Armee.jpg Austro-Hungarian Army
War Ensign of the Reichswehr, 1919 - 1935.png Provisional Reichswehr
Freikorps Flag.jpg Freikorps
SA-Logo.png Sturmabteilung
Polizei in der Weimarer Republik.jpg Police
Balkenkreuz.jpg Heer
Schutzstaffel
Flag Schutzstaffel.png Waffen-SS
Years of service 1918–1945
Rank SS-Gruppenführer and Lieutenant General of the Waffen-SS and Police
Service number NSDAP #49,042
SS rune.png #337,753
Commands held SS Volunteer Division Galicia
Battles/wars World War II
Awards German Cross in Gold
Relations ∞ 1926 Martha Ermisch

Walter Otto Schimana (12 March 1898 – 12 September 1948) was a German officer from Austria, finally SS-Gruppenführer and Lieutenant General of the Waffen-SS and Police in World War II.

Life

SS-Brigadeführer Schimana oversees the training of volunteers of the SS Volunteer Division Galicia

In 1915, after attending school since 1904 in Vienna and Mährisch-Ostrau, he went to a cadet school in Prague. He then spent a short time at the Theresian Military Academy. From September 1918, during the endphase of WWI, to 15 December 1918, when demobilization was completed, he served with the k. k. Schützenregiment Nr. 1 (SchR 1) of the k. k. 25. Schützenbrigade (Vienna), a unit of the Landwehr of the Imperial Austrian k.u.k. Armee (Imperial and Royal Army). After WWI, he moved to Bavaria. On 1 June 1919, he joined the 3rd Battalion of the 2. bayerisches Reichswehr-Infanterie-Regiment 44 in Passau and was promoted to Fähnrich der Reserve (cadet officer of the reserves) on 15 July 1919. It is possible, according to one source, that he served with a Bavarian Sicherungs-Bataillon of the Freikorps before joining the provisional Reichswehr.

On 2 September 1919, he joined the Freikorps in the Baltic and served with the Iron Division (Eiserne Division) under Josef Bischoff. He served with the 12th Company/2. kurländisches Infanterie-Regiment under Major Wilhelm Carl Albert Arthur von Kleist (1875–1939). Only shortly later, joined the West Russian Liberation Army (Westrussische Befreiungsarmee). The division had been ordered to be transported back to Mitau in August 1919, but Major Bischoff, supported by his 2nd general staff officer, Hauptmann i. G. Heinz Guderian, refused because he did not want to abandon the Balts who had bravely, but outnumbered, fought against the Bolsheviks. The 14,000 to 18,000 men under Bischoff, together with the 12,000 of the German Legion (Deutsche Legion) under Kapitän zur See Paul Siewert (⚔ 16 November 1919) and other Freikorps, joined the White Guard under General Prince Awaloff-Bermondt.

In mid-December 1919, the German troops were evacuted to East Prussia, Schimana was released from service on 20 April 1920 as Leutnant der Reserve (2nd lieutenant of the reserves). He attended a business school from 1921 to 1922, then worked as an accountant, with a bank and as a commercial businessman.

Chronology

Walter Schimana, 9. September 1945.jpg
Walter Schimana III.JPG
  • 18 August 1921 to 30 September 1922 Attended business school in Vienna, short employment as an accountant
  • 1922 to 1926/31 Bank employee in Danzig and Cologne, later commercial employee (antiquarian book store) and shipping manager in the cigar company "Haus Neuerburg"
  • 7 December 1926 Joined the NSDAP and the Sturmabteilung, Sturm 1 in Cologne or Munich, depending on the source
  • 1 October 1929 to 1 May 1930 Leader of the independent SA troop in Eichenau (Upper Bavaria)
  • Leader of the SA-Sturm 80/SA-Standarte X
  • 1 March 1931 to 1 August 1932 Commander of the I. Sturmbann/SA-Standarte 2; now SA employed
  • August 1932 to April 1933 Teacher and instructor at the SA school in Klein-Oels/Klein Öls in Silesia
    • In the castle of Hans Ludwig David Götz Peter Paul Graf Yorck von Wartenburg (1902–2002; jurist, diplomat and officer of the Wehrmacht), SA leadership conferences and NSDAP meetings took place.
  • 1 May 1933 to 15 March 1934 Leader of the
    • I. Sturmbann/SA-Standarte 50 in Stein (Middle Franconia)
    • III. Sturmbann/SA-Standarte 230 in Triebnitz
      • 1 July 1933 to 1 April 1934 Training together with the border protection units of the Reichswehr; frontier patrol service in Silesia
      • 1 March 1934 to 30 September 1938 Subordinated to the SA-Gruppe Schlesien (Silesia)
  • 15 March 1934 to 1 April 1935 On-call leader (Bereitschaftsführer) of the SA-Feldjäger-Korps in the area of Waldenburg (lower Silesia)
  • 1 April 1935 Transferred to the Schutzpolizei Waldenburg
  • 8 October 1935 to 31 March 1936 Specialist teacher at the Gendamerie Automotive Traffic School in Suhl
  • 1 April 1936 Officially transferred to the Gendamerie as official in charge in the staff of the Commander of the Berlin State Police
  • 26 June 1936 to 3 April 1938 Official in charge in the staff of the Commander of the Berlin Order Police
  • March 1938 Entered Austria (Anschluss) with a motorized police battalion
  • March 1938 to July 1939 Organized the motorized police in Austria
  • 20 June 1938 to 1 September 1939 Commander of the motorized Gendamerie as well as official in charge in the staff of the Inspector of the Order Police in Vienna
    • still also a SA officer, subordinated to the SA Group Danube
  • 15 August 1939 Joined the SS as SS-Standartenführer with the SS-Stammabteilung (District 11)
  • 1 September 1939 to 1 November 1940 Commander of the Feldgendarmerie-Abteilung (mot) 683 of the Wehrmacht
  • Commander of the motorized Gendamerie school in Deggingen
  • Inspector of the motorized Gendamerie (Reich Ministry of Interior)
  • 15 February 1941 to 1 July 1942 Subordinated to the staff of the SS-Personalamt (SS Personnel Office), afterwards to the Personal Staff RFSS (Persönlicher Stab „Reichsführer-SS“) until 5 October 1944
  • 4 September to 1 December 1941 SS and Police Leader (SSPF) in occupied Saratow, subordinated to the staff of the Highest SS and Police Leader (HöSSPF) Central Russia
  • 12 January to 27 April 1942 Commander of the Polizei-Regiment Mitte
    • 13 to 19 January 1942 Leader of a combat group (Kampfgruppe)
  • 27 April 1942 to June 1942 Commander of the Polizei-Regiment 13 (the renamed Polizei-Regiment Mitte)
  • 21 July to 1 December 1942 SS and Police Leader (SSPF) and garrison leader in Minsk
  • 1 December 1942 to 15 July 1943 Permanent representative of the SS and Police Leader (SSPF) White Ruthenia, at the same time, Leader of a combat group (Kampfgruppe) against partisans (Bandenbekämpfung)
    • 6 January to 11 February 1943 Commander (Befehlshaber) of the Order Police (BdO) in Paris (de facto granted leave)
  • 26 February to 27 December 1943 Special representative of the Head of the Order Police with the Highest SS and Police Leader (HöSSPF) Central Russia
  • 30 June to 19/22 October 1943 SS Volunteer Division Galicia
    • 15 July 1943 Transferred to the Waffen-SS as Major General
    • September 1943 Refresher course in Döberitz
  • 18 October 1943 to 5 October 1944 Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) Greece
  • 4 October 1944 Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) in Vienna
    • at the same time commander of the SS-Oberabschnitt Donau and commander of the POWs in the Military District XVII
  • 16 April 1945 Relieved of his HSSPF post and replaced by Otto Winkelmann (1894-1977)
  • 10 May 1945 Crossed into US occupied area
  • 14/15 May 1945 POW in Mauernkirchen, Austria

Death

After being captured by the 80th Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) Detachment, Schimana was taken to 12th US Army Interrogation Centre on the same day and arrived there on 23 May 1945 (Mobile Field Interrogation Unit No. 4). On 27 May 1945, the "Preliminary Interrogation Report" was issued. Subsequently, he was interned by the US occupation forces. He gave an affidavit dated 27 October 1947 (at the Nuremberg Show Trials) for defence of Eduard Strauch who was prosecuted in US Military Tribunal/Case 9 (The Einsatzgruppen Trial, Ohlendort et al). In 1948, having cooperated as much as possible, he was slowly awaiting release. In September 1948, Schimana was released from internment and automatically arrested by US authorities for alleged war crimes. In the jail in Salzburg, he was threatened with transfer to Yugoslavia or the Soviet Union. Only days later, he allegedly committed suicide, other sources assume he was tortured to death.

Family

First child, son Walter, was born in 1927. In 1945, he served in WWII, became a POW and was then used as forced labour by the British military government. It was a time of hunger and hardship. From 1947 to 1951, he did an apprenticeship as a gardener, later he would become Meister (master, 1957) in Berlin. he wpuld become one of Germany's best-known perennial and landscape gardeners. In 1963, he founded his own perennial gardening and landscaping business in Deiningen near Nördlingen in Bavaria, with the additional specialization from 1971 on the construction of foil ponds and the cultivation of aquatic plants. He died on 1 February 2021 at the age of 93.[1][2]

Walter was the son of the editor of the newspaper Alldeutsche Korrespondenz Anton Schimana (b. 21 August 1868 in Chräntschowitz, Austria-Hungary; d. 11 August 1910 in Vienna) and his wife Hulda Amalia, née Labsik. He had three siblings. On 26 January 1926, Schimana married his fiancée Martha Ermisch (b. 1902). They would have three sons and one daughter (Walter, b. 1927, Benno Rudolf, b. 1928, Winfried, b. 1931, d. 2022, and Sigrun).

Promotions

  • 1919 Korporal (in the k. u. k. Austrian Army a NCO rank)
  • 15.7.1919 Fähnrich der Reserve (Cadet Officer of the Reserves)
  • 1920 Leutnant der Reserve (2nd Lieutenant of the Reserves)
  • 7.12.1926 SA-Mann
  • 1.10.1929 SA-Truppführer
  • 22.11.1930 SA-Sturmführer
  • 10.8.1933 SA-Sturmbannführer
  • 15.3.1934 FJ-Sturmbannführer (SA Field Police)
  • 31.3.1935 FJ-Obersturmbannführer
  • 11.4.1935 Hauptmann der SA-Feldjäger-Korps (Captain of the Field Police)
  • 1.4.1936 Hauptmann der Gendarmerie (Captain of the Gendarmerie)
  • 9.11.1937 Major der Gendarmerie
  • 30.1.1938 SA-Standartenführer
  • 15.8.1939 SS-Standartenführer
  • 1.9.1939 Major der Feldgendarmerie (Field Gendarmerie of the Wehrmacht)
  • 30.10.1940 Oberstleutnant der Gendarmerie und Feldgendarmerie (Lieutenant Colonel)
  • 9.12.1941 Oberst der Gendarmerie (Colonel)
  • 25.7.1942 SS-Oberführer with Rank Seniority (RDA) from 1.7.1942
  • 9.11.1942 SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Polizei
  • 15.7.1943 Generalmajor der Waffen-SS
  • 20.4.1944 SS-Gruppenführer
  • 20.6.1944 Generalleutnant der Waffen-SS und der Polizei

Awards and decorations (excerpt)

References

  1. ↑ Walter Schimana
  2. ↑ Walter Schimana verstorben (Archive)
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