Franz Novak ( Wolfsberg , State of Carinthia , Austria , October to January of 1913 - 21 of October of 1983 ) was an official Austrian , who with the rank of SS Hauptsturmführer (Captain) belonged to the IVB4 Section of the Gestapo and participated in The Jewish Holocaust of World War II .
Participation in the Holocaust
He joined the Hitler Youth in 1929 . He entered the Nazi Party in 1933 . The following year he participated in the coup d’état against the Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss . In order to avoid arrest he is smuggled to Germany .
Novak returned to Vienna in May 1938 as a Candidate to SS Mann with the number 310500, working first in the Black Body Sports Section. In July of that same year it happened to work in the Central Office of Jewish Emigration under the instructions of Adolf Eichmann , although under the direct orders of Rolf Günther . The 1 of December of 1938 was promoted to SS Untersturmführer (Subteniente). In the summer of 1939 , he was transferred to the Central Office of Jewish Emigration in Prague, where his immediate superior was the SS Sturmbannführer Hans Günther . Both in Vienna and in Prague their obligations were to receive applications for emigration.
At the end of 1939, he was transferred to Berlin to take charge of the Evacuation Section of Jews, Poles, Gypsies and Slovaks. The head of the Department was Adolf Eichmann and his immediate superior was Rolf Günther .
Novak is part of Section IVB4 and was in charge of the Transportation Section of subsection IVB4b. Its participation in the Holocaust was decisive since it coordinated all the routes and itineraries of the trains that transferred to the Jewish communities in the territory conquered by the III Reich .
Between spring 1944 and late November 1944, he was prominent in Budapest where he reported to SS Hauptsturmführer Dieter Wisliceny . The last month of 1944 , he was transferred to an Eastern Front Combat Bunker under the command of Colonel von Konitz of the Wehrmacht .
After the war he hid in Austria using a false name until 1961 , when he was arrested and charged. He witnessed the trial of SS Oberturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann in Israel.
After the war
The 17 of December of 1964 , Novar was first sentenced to 8 years in prison for the role played in the Command Eichmann in Hungary in 1944 . For reasons of legal formulation, the verdict was suspended by the Supreme Court, which decided to overrule the sentence since its participation in the murder had been ancillary.
On September 6, 1966, a Vienna Court declared Novak “not guilty of all charges”. This was done with the allegation that Novak “was bound to obey orders” (“Befehlsnotstand” in German). After five years of preventive detention Novak was released. Two years later, the Supreme Court reversed the trial for formal reasons and ordered another trial. This time a unanimous verdict of guilt was obtained on December 18, 1969, which was nine years in prison. Novak’s lawyer filed for annulment once more without being arrested. After a third appeal in the Supreme Court dictated a guilty verdict on 13 of April of 1972 .
The jury this time denied the alleged obligation of Novak to be obeying orders under duress. He was convicted not of murder but of “public violence under aggravating circumstances” for transporting human beings without sufficient water, food or sanitary facilities. Seven of the eight members of the jury failed to uphold the charge of “an important accessory to commit homicide” which limited the commission of the crime. As a result, Novak was only held for seven years. The Supreme Court prohibited any appeals or requests for clemency.
However he was released at age six for alleged “good conduct”.