Otto Steinhäusl

Dr. Otto Steinhäusl
Steinhäusl (left) with Oberst der Schutzpolizei Carl Retzlaff in 1939. Retzlaff was commander of the Schutzpolizei in Vienna.
Born	10 March 1879 Austria-Hungary
Died	20 June 1940 (aged 61) Vienna, Ostmark, Germany
Allegiance	First Austrian Republic (to 1938) Nazi Germany
Service/branch	Schutzstaffel
Rank	Oberführer
Commands held	Polizeipräsident of Vienna
Awards	Anschluss Medal

Otto Steinhäusl (10 March 1879 – 20 June 1940) was an Austrian-born SS-Oberführer, Polizeipräsident (Police President) of Vienna, and President of Interpol (1938–1940).

Steinhäusl served as Vienna's head of police and Polizeipräsident starting in the early 1930s. It is also believed to be the time which he joined the underground Austrian SS. Otto Strasser alleged that Steinhäusl was a secret Gestapo agent, and that in July 1933 there was an operation orchestrated by Steinhäusl to either kidnap Strasser, and smuggle him across the German frontier, or imprison him. However, the attempt met with failure.

In the aftermath of the assassination of Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss on 25 July 1934, Steinhäusl was found to be one of the conspirators. He was sentenced to a long term of imprisonment.

On the morning of 12 March 1938, the 8th Army of the German Wehrmacht crossed the German-Austrian border. They did not face resistance by the Austrian Army—on the contrary, the German troops were greeted by cheering Austrians with Hitler salutes, Nazi flags and flowers. Because of this, the Nazi invasion is also called the Blumenkrieg (war of flowers). By noon on the same day, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler removed the current President of Interpol, Dr. Michael Skubl, who would later be replaced by Steinhäusl, who had just been released from prison. Steinhäusl was reinstated as Polizeipräsident of Vienna, and promoted to SS-Standartenführer on the day of the Anschluss.

As Polizeipräsident of Vienna, Steinhäusl conspired with two higher leaders of the Austrian SS, Fridolin Glass and Josef Fitzthum, to retain the existing force structure of the Austrian police. Hoping to preempt a massive reorganization that might place their own careers in jeopardy, they persuaded the chief of Ordnungspolizei, Kurt Daluege, to refrain from a purge, claiming that most of the detectives, policemen, and even neighborhood patrolmen had been illegal Nazi activists before the Anschluss. Daluege was skeptical but agreed to wait until evidence could be organized and scrutinized. The response was the concoction of fraudulent documents that included backdated membership cards, forged dossiers, fabricated reports, and a host of other laundered or counterfeit items. By September 1938 nearly 1,000 policemen were officially confirmed to have been activists, of whom 700 were also admitted into the SS.