Gustav

I was born GUSTAV SCHWARZENEGGER (1907-1972), in Graz, Austria, on August 1, 1907. I joined the Nazi Party on March 1, 1938 (when it was still illegal), days before Hitler’s annexation of Austria. I volunteered for the paramilitary "Sturmabteilungen" (Stormtroopers) on May 1, 1939, six months after the “brownshirts” razed 1,000 synagogues on “Kristallnacht” (Night of Broken Glass). I enlisted in the Wehrmacht in November, 1939, seeing action in France and Lithuania. I became a master sergeant in the 110-man “Wehrmacht Feldgendarmerie” (Army Field Police) Unit 521, part of the German 14th Army invasion of Poland in 1940 and the Panzer Group 4 invasion of Russia in 1941. It was here that Feldgendarmerie units (nicknamed "Chained Dogs" for the metal neck-links they wore as part of the uniform), suppressed civilian populations for the advancing Army Group North, by burning villages and shooting partisans. We were so hated by the Soviets that bounties were placed on our heads to be shot on sight. Unit 521 helped round up Jews and Communists for the “Schutzstaffel” (SS) unit attached to Panzer Group 4. Our “Einsatzgruppe A” (Working Group A) killed 2 million people between June, 1941, and January 31, 1942. I was wounded on August 22, 1942, and treated in a military hospital in Lodz, Poland. In February, 1944, I was discharged from the Wehrmacht due to frequent malaria. On October 20, 1945, I married Aurelia Jadrny (1922-1998), a widow, in Murzsteg, Austria. We bore two sons: Meinhard in 1946, and Arnold Alois on July 30, 1947, in Styria. In 1948 I became police chief of Thal, despite being rated a 3-point (out of 5), war criminal by post-war Austrian officials. We lived in a 300 year-old home without heating, plumbing or refrigeration, at 145 Thal-Linak. Aurelia recounted my “brutal temper and violent possessiveness.” I was apparently so controlling that I “forbade her to wear sleeveless dresses in summer.” I accused her of unfaithfulness, “screaming that Arnold was a bastard.” Arnold was terrorized by me, partly because I “gloried in pitting [my] two sons against each other, making them fight, then humiliating the loser.” Arnold has claimed, “My father always acted like a general. I grew up in a disciplined atmosphere.” In August, 2003, Werner Kopacka, the correspondent in Graz for the Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung and a friend of Arnold stated, “His father was a strong, domineering person who taught him discipline. He taught Arnold to fight and to bear pain.” I got Arnold an appointment as an Austrian Army tank-driver at the age of 18, despite the requirement of 21 years of age. I turned to alcohol in the late 1960’s and died at the age of 65 in 1972. Arnold was 25 years old at the time, and on his third International Federation of Bodybuilders (IFBB) “Mr. Olympia” title (1970-75, 1980). He had also begun an American film career, with “Hercules in New York” (1970). REFERENCES: 1) Koch, Neal, “Strong-arming the Hollywood Press,” Columbia Journalism Review, Jan./Feb., 1991. 2) Leigh, Wendy, "Arnold: The Unauthorised Biography," 1990. 3) Wilkinson, Tracy and Lait, Matt, “Austrian Archives Reveal Nazi Military Role of Actor’s Father,” Los Angeles Times, Thurs., 8/14/03.