Friedrich Spiel

Hitler's executive

19 September 1916 in Vienna – 3 December 1998 in Vienna Friedrich Spiel, a salesman living in Hall in Tirol, was called up to the police reserve in August 1941. In June 1942 he joined the Reserve Police Battalion 181. After Upper Carniola (Slovenia) was annexed to the Reichsgau Carinthia, this battalion was stationed in Krainburg (Kranj) and was incorporated into Police Regiment 19. Police Regiment 19 was a central instrument of the Germanisation policy and the repression of the Slovenian resistance. It carried out executions, forced relocations and deportations. Some police officers were deployed as guards in a sub-camp of the Mauthausen concentration camp near the Loibl/Ljubelj pass, where the prisoners had to dig a road tunnel. One of the guards was Friedrich Spiel. He was the only former guard to testify at the British trial in 1947 against the SS camp director Jakob Winkler and the Klagenfurt SS camp doctor Sigbert Ramsauer. He testified to the shootings and mistreatment of prisoners and thus contributed to the conviction of Winkler and Ramsauer.