Anton Galler

* "30 January 1915" – Marktl near Lilienfeld (Austria)
† "21 March 1995" – Dénia (Spain)

Anton Galler is attributed with shared responsibility for the massacre at Sant’Anna di Stazzema.

He hailed from Lower Austria and came into contact with the Nazi movement early on. In 1932, he joined Hitler Youth; in 1933, he joined the SS. He then had to leave Austria for Germany, where he completed a training course for SS-leaders. Assigned to the Schutzpolizei, he participated in the deportation of Upper Silesia’s Polish and Jewish residents. In 1941, he took part in fighting with the 4^th SS Police Division in Northern Russia. Beginning in Dec. 1943 Galler commanded a company of the ‘Reichsführer-SS’ Division. After heavy losses in Tuscany, at the end of July he took command of the 2^nd Battalion of SS Panzergrenadier Regiment 35. In this role, soon after he participated in the massacre at Sant’Anna di Stazzema. Following the massacre at Monte Sole, Galler took control there near the front, where more murders of civilians were perpetrated. In the postwar period, he evaded arrest and largely led a normal life.

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Nationality

Austrian

Formation

Hitler Youth (20 Dec. 1932)
SS (1 March 1933)

Army branch

Ordnungspolizei, Waffen-SS

Joined the NSDAP

No. 5756757 (24 June 1937)

Armed force

Waffen-SS

Unit

Schutzpolizei (then 4th SS Police Division)
16th SS Panzergrenadier Division ‘Reichsführer-SS’

Years of service

1934-1945

SS-Sturmbannführer

Offensive

Austrian ‘Anschluss’
Occupation of Czechoslovakia
Invasion of Poland
Invasion of Soviet Union
War in the East
Occupation of Italy 1944-45

Confirmed Massacres

Sant’Anna di Stazzema

Post war period

Lived a largely normal life in Austria

Proceedings on account of Nazi crimes in Poland were terminated

Emigration first to Canada, then to Spain

Training and war experience

Early years

Anton Galler was born on 30 Jan. 1915 in Marktl near Sankt Pölten (Lower Austria). He was the son of a railway employee, born out of wedlock. His mother was Catholic, his father describing himself as Gottgläubig, suggesting a volkish and Nazi-leaning orientation.

Between 1922 and 1927, Galler attended a Volksschule, then, between 1927 and 1931, the Hauptschule in Lilienfeld. Finally, until 1933 he trained as a baker at a vocational school in Amstetten.

Like many of the Nazi political refugees from Austria, in Germany Galler was taken in by the aid organization of the SS in Dachau. Soon afterwards, he joined the SS Verfügungstruppe (‘dispositional troops’), where he was selected for a leadership career. A psychological exam concluded that he had a “simple character of moderate intellectual capacities’.

Drawing close to National Socialism - political activities and military career

Galler moved toward Nazism through the network of German nationalist clubs and associations. He became a member of the Deutscher Turnverein (German Gymnastics League). He applied to join the SS but was rejected, being too young at 16.

In Dec. 1932 he joined Hitler Youth. A few months later, on 1 March 1933, he was accepted into the SS. On 27 Aug. he had to flee Germany as he was now sought by the Austrian authorities on account of his ‘political situation’ – since 19 June 1933, Nazi organizations were forbidden in Austria.

Like many similar SS-members who had fled from Austria, Galler was taken in by the Dachau-based aid organization of the SS. Soon after, he joined the SS Verfügungstruppe, where he was selected as part of the next-generation SS-leadership. He passed the exit exam with average grades. On 20 April 1937, he was named an SS Untersturmführer.
With the Schutzpolizei in the Nazi "struggle for race and volk"

Like appr. a third of his training-course comrades, Galler was assigned to the Schutzpolizei. He served in Upper Silesia, in the contested border areas adjacent to Poland. Initially he worked in the Gleiwitz police administration; then he was deployed in Beuthen as a platoon leader, a technical and ‘weltanschauung’ instructor, and sometimes as the adjutant in a police battalion. His resumé reports that he participated with this battalion in ‘liberation of the Eastern March’ – the Ostmark, the Nazi term for Austria – as well as of the Sudetenland, and in invading the ‘Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia’.

With Reserve Police Battalion 83, Galler participated in the forcible ‘Germanization’ of Upper Silesia after its annexation by Nazi Germany in 1939. The area’s main residents were Poles and Jews. His battalion was particularly involved in the deportation of the Polish populace from the Beskids, an area the Nazis planned to use for resettlement of the South Tirolean populace. To this end – the plans would not be realized for economic reasons – 17,000 Poles were driven out of their homeland. Then, on 27 March 1941, 5,500 Jews from Oświęcim, the site of the Auschwitz camp complex, were deported to Sosnoviec and Będzin, to make room for the barracks of the workers brought in to set up the Monowitz camp (Auschwitz III).

At the end of 1941, Galler was transferred to the 4th SS Police Division, then fighting on the front near Leningrad and at Volkhov, where he was wounded. He remained with the division appr. two years, until being assigned in Dec. 1943 to the 16th SS Panzergrenadier Division ‘Reichsführer-SS’ and given command of a company.

Participation in massacres of civilians

From Sant 'Anna di Stazzema to Monte Sole

In late July 1944, the ‘Reichsführer-SS’ division suffered heavy losses in Tuscany. Galler replaced the Kommandeur of the II Battalion of SS Panzergrenadier Regiment 35, who had gone missing in action during the fighting at Livorno. Since Galler only had modest military skills, taking over this command posed a difficult challenge; he needed an adjustment period. From later American interrogations, it becomes clear he was not especially charismatic: men who had been his soldiers often could not recall his name.

In late July, the battalion was withdrawn from the front and spent some days in the San Rossore Forest. It was then assigned to the 14^th Army in the coastal interior; on 5 Aug. it was stationed in the area of Pietrasanta. The losses suffered in July strongly weakened the battalion, which now consisted of 300 men at most, only a few of them officers. In early August, a German soldier who had been held prisoner by the partisans in the mountains above Sant'Anna managed to return to the battalion. On the basis of what he reported, the men now received orders to move against the partisans that were active there. Fighting began on Monte Gabberi on 8 Aug. 1944. The village of Farnocchia was set on fire, some partisans were killed, and the battalion withdrew with four wounded men. The operation demonstrated the presence of partisan units in the area. Their losses increased anger and resentment by the Germans – the division needed no excuse to begin punishment expeditions. Four days later, Galler’s battalion attacked Sant'Anna di Stazzema. But the battalion was not the only one participating in the massacre; as with the other large-scale massacres perpetrated by the division, the responsible commander was Helmut Looß.

Nevertheless, testimony collected during investigations by prosecutors in Stuttgart and La Spezia confirm that soldiers in Galler’s battalion were mainly responsible for the massacre of 12 August in Sant'Anna. Soon after the event took place, the battalion was moved south; in Sept. it was located in the woods between Arno und Serchio.

In Oct. 1944, Galler took control of the front area near Monte Sole, where the massacre had been perpetrated a few days before. His men may have committed some of the murders of civilians carried out at this time, such as the events in Don Giovanni Fornasini in San Martino di Caprara on 13 Oct. 1944. On 18 Oct., Galler was wounded in San Martino by artillery fire and had to give up his command. He was replaced by SS Hauptsturmführer Hans Hipp.

The postwar period

A restless but reserved life

The only information on Galler’s life after 1945 comes from the research of journalist Christiane Kohl for the Süddeutsche Zeitung.

In the postwar period Galler lead a nearly normal life, which was nevertheless unsteady and marked by insecurity. Initially he stayed hidden in his hometown, Sankt Pölten, then emigrated to Canada, where he worked in a Uranium mine. In the 1960s, he returned to Austria, according to Christiane Kohl, proceedings against Galler were then underway in Poland for the murder of 13 people during his time there. But this did not lead to criminal prosecution. Meanwhile Galler had settled in Salzburg, where he worked as a personnel supervisor on suburban construction sites. He eventually moved to Salzburg’s Taxham district. He died on 21 March 1995, aged 80, in Dénia on the Spanish Costa Blanca – a place where many former Nazi criminals had found shelter. He is buried alongside his wife Elfe Galler in the cemetery there.

Sources

Galler’s SS-personnel files, offering a close picture of his life up to 1945, are kept in the German Federal Archives in Berlin (R 9361-III/50618, R 9361-III/525588 and VBS 1069 (R 19)/ZB 1026 A. 12). Galler’s life after the war is described in the book of Christiane Kohl, who also conducted an interview with his son in the autumn of 1999.

Literature

Carlo Gentile, Wehrmacht und Waffen-SS im Partisanenkrieg: Italien 1943-1945, Paderborn, Ferdinand Schöningh, 2012, pp. 294-296.

Christiane Kohl, Der Himmel war strahlend blau. Vom Wüten der Wehrmacht in Italien. Reportageband, Vienna, Picus, 2004.

Christiane Kohl/Peter Burghardt, Viel Bräune im sonnigen Pensionistendorf, in: Süddeutsche Zeitung Nr. 262, 12.11.1999, p. 3.

Authorship and translation

Author: Carlo Gentile

Translated from German by: Joel Golb

2023

Text: CC BY NC SA 4.0

Anton Galler

Training and war experience

Early years

Drawing close to National Socialism - political activities and military career

With the Schutzpolizei in the Nazi "struggle for race and volk"

Participation in massacres of civilians

From Sant 'Anna di Stazzema to Monte Sole

The postwar period

A restless but reserved life

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