Hans Fischböck papers

Hans Fischböck (1895-1967, also known as Juan Carlos Fischböck and Jakob or Jacobo Schramm) was born on January 24, 1895 in Geras in Lower Austria as the son of a judge. In 1896 his parents relocated to Vienna, Austria where he went to elementary school and graduated from high school (Gymnasium). After his service in World War I, he studied law in Vienna and earned a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree.

After his studies, Fischböck made a career in the 1930s in the banking and insurance business, specializing in bankruptcy cases. In this capacity, Fischböck met Arthur Seyss-Inquart, a fellow German nationalist who would become Nazi Governor (Reichsstatthalter) of Nazi-annexed Austria and Reich Commissioner (Reichskommissar) for the Nazi-occupied Netherlands. By the spring of 1938, Fischböck was among Seyss-Inquart’s closest circle of confidants. Shortly before the Anschluss and responding to German pressure, the administration of Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg appointed Fischböck as State Councilor for Economic Relations with the German Reich (Staatsrat für die Wirtschaftsbeziehungen zum Deutschen Reich). After Schuschnigg’s resignation, Fischböck became the Minister of Trade in Seyss-Inquart’s cabinet. In May 1938, Fischböck was appointed Minister of Economic Affairs with control over the “Vermögensverkehrsstelle” and the Aryanization of Jewish properties and assets in Nazi-annexed Austria. A day after “Kristallnacht,” the November 1938 pogrom, Fischböck, together with Reinhard Heydrich, Josef Goebbels, and Reich Minister for Economic Affairs Walther Funk, participated in a meeting convened by Hermann Göring during which Fischböck described the methods by which Jewish property had been successfully expropriated in Nazi-annexed Austria and during which he proposed further aryanizations and enhanced economic measures against the Jews.

In May 1939, Fischböck was appointed Commissioner General for Finance and Economic Affairs (General-Kommissar für Finanz und Wirtschaft) in The Hague, Netherlands. Fischböck became a member of the SS that same year with the rank of Oberführer (in 1941, Fischböck was promoted to SS-Brigadeführer). In the spring of 1942, Fischböck became State Secretary and Reich Commissioner for Price Control for the Nazi-occupied Netherlands (Staatssekretär und Reichskommissar für die Preisbildung). In this capacity, Fischböck set up a foreign currency protection unit that worked closely with the Reichsbank and the RSHA in the plundering of Jewish assets and in Jewish extortion. In due course, he joined the Armaments Ministry as “stellvertretender Leiter des Planungs- und Rohstoffamtes” and became the deputy of Hans Kehrl, the Ministry’s most powerful official. Fischböck belonged to the Freundeskreis Reichsführer-SS, a group of German industrials who sought to influence Third Reich economic policy.

After the war, Fischböck lived under a fake name in Munich until 1950 when he escaped with his family to Latin America. Krunoslav Stjepan Draganović, a Croatian Roman Catholic priest active in the Nazi escape network, personally signed Fischböck’s application for a Red Cross passport. Under the fake name of Jakob (Jacobo) Schramm, Fischböck arrived in Buenos Aires on February 2, 1951 from Genoa, Italy. He found employment in the firm of the former Waffen-SS commander Karl Nicolussi-Leck. Much of the work of Nicolussi-Leck’s firm came from the German industrial conglomerate Mannesmann.

Around 1953, Fischböck, who had since acquired Argentine citizenship, felt secure enough to revert back to his real name and in 1954 he applied for his old Austrian citizenship. Although the Austrian authorities did not honor Fischböck’s request, they did not seek extradition although a case against Fischböck was pending before the Austrian peoples’ court due to §§ 10, 11 VG (Illegalität), § 8 KVG (Hochverrat am österr. Volk) und § 58 StG (Hochverrat) (see: USHMM RG-17.003M, LG Wien Vg 7c Vr 2197/49 gg. Dr. Hans FISCHBÖCK). In 1957, the Austrian Nazi amnesty took effect.

Hans Fischböck and his wife Eva (1911-1975) and son Wolfgang Schramm led a comfortable middle-class life in Buenos Aires with homes at 2473 Arenales street in the Buenos Aires suburb of Florida, and at 1761 Gaspar Campos Street in the suburb of Vicente Lopez. They appear to have maintained a close circle of German friends and former associates, Adolf Eichmann among them (for a time Eichmann’s office on the Avenida de Córdoba in downtown Buenos Aires was one floor below Fischböck’s). After Eichmann’s capture, Mrs. Fischböck is reported to have said that she was one of the last people to have spoken to him.

Around 1960, Hans Fischböck and his wife returned to Germany where Fischböck worked as a consultant to a steel concern in Essen. In 1966, following a lead by Simon Wiesenthal, a Dutch journalist revealed Fischböck’s whereabouts in Essen by publishing an interview that he had conducted with Fischböck during an unscheduled visit to his residence. Subsequently, it was reported that the Netherlands were issuing a request for Fischböck’s extradition but he was never prosecuted. He died on June 3, 1967 in Wehrda, Kreis Marburg an der Lahn.

Sources:
1. Goñi, Uki. The Real Odessa: How Perón Brought the Nazi War Criminals to Argentina. London: New York: Granta, 2002
2. Graf, Wolfgang. Österreichische SS-Generäle. Himmlers verlässliche Vasallen. Klagenfurt = Celovec: Hermagoras Verein = Mohorjeva založba, 2012.
3. Klee, Ernst. Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich: wer war was vor und nach 1945? Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2003
4. Stangneth, Bettina. Eichmann Before Jerusalem: The Unexamined Life of a Mass Murderer. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014
5. Steinacher, Gerald. Nazis on the Run: How Hitler’s Henchmen Fled Justice. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.