Major General Erwin Lahousen (1897 - 1955)

Foto: Erwin Lahousen. Im Zeugenstand beim Nürnberger Prozess. Erwin Lahousen. Wikipedia. Die freie Enzyklopädie. Online unter, (23. Mai 2005),  Gemeinfrei, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=163175 (Stand: 29.9.2025).

Introduction

Major General Erwin Lahousen, Edler von Vivremont, stands as one of the significant, yet long-neglected personalities in the public perception of the military resistance against the Nazi regime. As historian Karl Glaubauf emphasizes, Austrian officers of the Wehrmacht who actively participated in the coup attempts seldom received recognition as resistance fighters. Lahousen, who acted out of conviction alongside men like Robert Bernardis and Heinrich Kodre, is a prime example of this group of patriots. Their aim was not to commit treason, but to save their homeland from utter ruin.
Equipped with detailed knowledge of the regime's crimes and driven by profound moral conflicts, this Linz-born counter-intelligence officer resolved to put an end to the terror. His surviving records and his testimony at the Nuremberg Trials are among the most important Austrian sources on the resistance, yet they have remained largely overlooked. The following biography traces his life and work.

Origin and Family

Erwin Heinrich René Lahousen, Edler von Vivremont, was born on October 25, 1897, in Vienna. He came from a family with a long-standing military tradition, whose coat of arms dated back to 1590 and whose origins lay in the Hanseatic city of Osnabrück.
His father, Wilhelm Carl Lahousen (1853–1921), served as a Lieutenant Field Marshal in the Austro-Hungarian Army. For eight generations, his descendants had chosen the profession of soldiering. One ancestor, Friedrich Christian von Lahousen, was involved in the recapture of Belgrade in 1789. It was he who selected Linz as his residence, where the family subsequently established its right of domicile and was ennobled in 1880.

Military Training and the First World War

Lahousen began his military career by attending the Military Gymnasium in Mährisch-Weißkirchen (1907–1913), followed by training at the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt (1913–1915). During the First World War, he served from 1915 to 1918 on both the Eastern and Alpine fronts.
After sustaining two severe wounds in 1916, he was assigned in 1917 as a First Lieutenant to the clerical staff of the Austro-Hungarian Infantry Regiment No. 14. In the post-war period, he served from 1919 to 1920 with the People's Militia (Volkswehr) in Korneuburg.

Lahousen in the Austrian Federal Army

In 1921, Lahousen joined the Austrian Federal Army and was assigned to the 3rd Mountain Infantry Regiment No. 7 in Linz. After a posting in Freistadt (1922), he completed the General Staff training course at the Vienna War School from 1930 to 1931.
In 1933, he was deployed as a Major in the 2nd Brigade as an intelligence officer. By 1938, he had risen to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel of the General Staff and was working in Vienna as a member of the intelligence department. From 1937, he served as deputy to the department head, Franz Böhme, in the Austrian Ministry of Defense.

Early Warning Signs and Lahousen's Career in the Austrian Federal Army

Even during the First Austrian Republic, Lahousen held significant positions in the Federal Army. The assassination of Chancellor Dr. Engelbert Dollfuß in July 1934 reinforced his recognition of the putschist threat posed by the Nazis.
Under Chancellor Dr. Kurt Schuschnigg, the Ministry of Defense was headed by State Secretary Wilhelm Zehner (1883–1938), who knew Lahousen from their shared time of service in Linz and henceforth placed special trust in him. Zehner assigned him highly sensitive tasks, including the position of desk officer for "neighboring states, especially Czechoslovakia," which gave Lahousen a leading role in Austrian military intelligence.
During this period, in early 1936, he was promoted to Major and shortly thereafter to Lieutenant Colonel of the General Staff. Concurrently, a close relationship developed with Madeleine Bihet-Richou, a French agent.

Secret Cooperation and the "Anschluss" of 1938

The July Agreement of 1936 between Austria and the German Reich included secret supplementary clauses that forced cooperation between their military intelligence services. As part of this arrangement, a fateful meeting took place in 1937: Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the German Abwehr, visited the chief of Austrian intelligence, Colonel Franz Boehme. At this meeting, Boehme's subordinate, Lieutenant Colonel Erwin Lahousen, was introduced to Canaris and his deputy, Colonel Hans Piekenbrock.
On the night of March 11, 1938, following the radio address by Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg announcing his resignation, former intelligence chief Colonel Maximilian Ronge and Lahousen began destroying sensitive files from the Evidenzbureau (the intelligence office). In the early morning of March 12, Admiral Canaris personally appeared at the Ministry of Defense and seized the secret documents that had not yet been destroyed. Just two hours later, SS leader Walter Schellenberg confiscated the personal files of leading Nazi functionaries.

Transfer to the Abwehr and the Stance of the Resistance

As early as March 12, 1938, Colonel Rudolf Graf von Marogna-Redwitz, who would later be executed as a resistance fighter of the July 20, 1944 plot, was installed as the new head of the intelligence service in Vienna.
In April 1938, Lahousen himself entered the service of the Abwehr under Admiral Canaris in Berlin. Canaris's instruction to Lahousen was unambiguous: "Do not bring any Nazis with you, especially to the headquarters in Berlin; bring Austrians, not 'Ostmärker'." This order highlighted Canaris's distanced stance towards the Nazi regime. During Lahousen's introductory visit in Berlin, his immediate superior, Colonel Hans Oster, reinforced this attitude by stating "that a criminal stood at the head of the Reich."

In the Foreign/Abwehr Office and the Resistance

Following the Anschluss of Austria in 1938, Lahousen was incorporated into the German Wehrmacht. From June 1938 until 1943, he was deployed in the Abwehr under Admiral Wilhelm Canaris in Berlin.
From 1939 to 1943, he served as the senior intelligence officer in charge of Abteilung II (Sabotage and Subversion) within the Foreign/Abwehr Office of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW - Supreme Command of the Armed Forces). In this key position, he was simultaneously an active member of the military resistance against the Nazi regime.

Lahousen's Role in the Resistance and at the Front

In early 1939, Lahousen assumed leadership of Abteilung II (Sabotage and Subversion) of the Abwehr. As he later testified before the Nuremberg Tribunal, he felt "connected and bound" by the clear stance of Admiral Canaris. In this position, he had no qualms about passing military secrets to the French intelligence service. The contact continued through his confidante, Madeleine Bihet-Richou, and took place in Budapest after the invasion of Poland.
As the military situation grew increasingly hopeless, Lahousen went to the front. On July 17, 1944, one day before the assassination attempt on Hitler, his command post on the Eastern Front came under heavy fire. Lahousen was severely wounded but survived. On July 19, 1944, he was awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class, and on January 1, 1945, he was promoted to the rank of Major General (Generalmajor).
After the war, he appeared as one of the most important witnesses for the prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials.

The Nuremberg Trials and Lahousen's Role

The Nuremberg Trials, which took place from November 20, 1945, to April 14, 1949, formed the central element of the Allied program for the criminal prosecution of Nazi war crimes. In this historical context, Major General Erwin Lahousen held particular significance.
As the highest-ranking surviving officer of the Abwehr, he took the stand on November 30, 1945, as the first witness for the prosecution in the trial of the major war criminals.

Testimony in Nuremberg: The Legacy of the Resistance

Before the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg on November 30, 1945, Lahousen, as the first witness for the prosecution, articulated the political legacy of the Canaris circle. He cited their conviction that the war would mean the end of Germany, and emphasized: "A misfortune, but one that would be even greater than this catastrophe, would be the triumph of this system. To prevent this by all means possible must be the ultimate meaning and purpose of our struggle."
With these words, he underscored the ethical imperative that guided the actions of the military resistance.

Captivity and Testimony at Nuremberg

From May 1945 to 1947, Erwin Lahousen was held as a prisoner of war by the United States in Nuremberg. He assumed his central role as a key witness for the prosecution at the International Military Tribunal from November 1945 onwards.
Subsequently, from August to December 1946, he was interned by the British occupation authorities in Bad Nenndorf near Hanover.

A Life in the Shadow of the Cold War: The Tyrol Years

Following his release from captivity in 1947, Lahousen moved to the French military protectorate of Tyrol. This step was likely also a precautionary measure in the emerging Cold War, a time when former intelligence officers were prime targets for persecution and recruitment attempts by Soviet services.
Seefeld (1947–1951): He established his first residence from July 31, 1947, to July 31, 1951, in Seefeld in Tyrol (House No. 219).
Solbad Hall (1951–1953): Subsequently, he lived until September 2, 1953, in Solbad Hall (Obere Lend No. 14). The choice of Hall may have been influenced by its municipal administration, which was composed of former resistance fighters and had good connections to the French military administration.
The modest addresses and frequent moves suggest that Lahousen lived a deliberately shielded existence. As a former high-ranking officer and a key witness from Nuremberg, he had to fear retaliatory measures from fanatical Nazis, such as the so-called "Werwolves." It is therefore possible that the registered addresses were, at least in part, cover addresses.

Final Years in Innsbruck and Lack of Recognition

In 1953, Lahousen permanently moved his residence to Innsbruck. There, he married Stefanie Neumann-Pintarics on May 18, 1953, and lived at Ingenieur-Thommen-Straße 2. He passed away in this apartment in 1955, after suffering from a long-standing heart condition. His widow later moved to Absam.
Despite his efforts, for which he risked his life for the freedom of Austria, and his crucial role in Nuremberg, Major General Erwin Lahousen has to this day been largely denied public recognition as a resistance fighter. His fate is emblematic of the persistent neglect of the military resistance in Austrian culture of remembrance.