Wilhelm Höttl

Wilhelm Höttl or Hoettl (19 March 1915 – 27 June 1999) was an Austrian Nazi Party member, and SS member who rose to the rank of SS-Sturmbannführer. He served in the Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service; SD), and by 1944 was acting head of Intelligence and Counter Espionage in Central and South East Europe. After the war ended, Höttl opened a school in Bad Aussee and authored two books. He died in 1999.

Höttl was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, 19 March 1915. In 1938, at the age of only 23, he received a doctorate in history from the University of Vienna. While still a student there, he joined the Nazi Party (member no. 6309616) and the SS (member no. 309510). From late 1939 until the end of World War II in Europe, Höttl was employed almost without interruption by Germany's central intelligence and security agency, the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA) or Reich Main Security Office. The RSHA was made up of seven main departments, including: the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) or Security Service; the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo) or Security Police, composed of the Gestapo (Secret State Police) and the Kriminalpolizei (Kripo) or Criminal Police.

Höttl was first stationed in Vienna with the SD foreign bureau and then moved to Berlin where he was promoted to the rank of SS-Sturmbannführer (major). In 1944 Höttl became the Ausland-SD's acting head of Intelligence and Counter Espionage in Central and South East Europe. In March he was assigned to Budapest, where he served as second in command to Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler's SS representative in Hungary. In addition, Höttl served as political advisor to Hitler's ambassador there, Edmund Veesenmayer, who reported to Berlin, for example, on the large-scale deportations in 1944 of Jews from Hungary. During his stay in Budapest he was in contact with the Americans in Bern, Switzerland.

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