Arthur Seyß-Inquart (1892–1946)

During the final months of the Dollfuss-Schuschnigg dictatorship, the leading Austrian Nazi Arthur Seyss-Inquart was made a member of government to appease the Nazi Party. Shortly before the so-called “Anschluss”, Hitler pressured the Austrian government to appoint him as the Minister of the Interior and Security. In this role, he ensured that all the police files fell into the hands of the Nazis. This made it easy for the Nazi regime to track down the political opposition. After the chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg’s resignation during the “Anschluss”, Seyss-Inquart became the last chancellor of Austria before it became part of Germany.

Seyss-Inquart went on to hold the highest political positions in Nazi Germany, starting as deputy chief of the civil administration in occupied Poland. As the Reich Commissioner of The Netherlands, he was responsible for the deportation of the Dutch Jews. He was sentenced to death at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946.