Hitlers Exekutive

The police were one of the pillars of the Nazi dictatorship and operated throughout the German Reich, both at home and in the occupied territories. Austrian police officers and gendarmes played a key role in the persecution and murder of people, in war crimes, and in the Holocaust. Only a few police officers were critical of the regime or even resisted it.

Of particular significance for Lower Austria is the group led by Deputy Police Chief Otto Kirchl, whose members planned a peaceful surrender of the city of St. Pölten to the Red Army at the end of the war. They were betrayed and ultimately executed.

From October 4th 2025 to February 22nd 2026, the Haus der Geschichte at the Museum of Lower Austria will be showing an exhibition on the executive branch between 1938 and 1945. The exhibition will shed light on the police apparatus under National Socialism as well as before and after the Nazi regime, providing an overview of its organization, tasks, and ideology. Biographies are used to present the fates and behaviours of individuals within the Austrian executive branch and to highlight different perspectives and scope for action—from resistance and the struggle for freedom to tyranny and murder.

The exhibition was based on the findings of the research project „Die Polizei in Österreich. Brüche und Kontinuitäten 1938–1945“, which was also initiated by the Bundesministerium für Inneres (Federal Ministry of the Interior) and carried out at the University of Graz/ Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Research on Consequences of War cooperation with the Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance and the Mauthausen Memorial. The exhibition was also funded by the Bundesministerium für Inneres and the Zukunftsfonds der Republik Österreich.

In cooperation with