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Josef Fitzthum (14 September 1896 – 10 January 1945) was a high-ranking Austrian member of the Schutzstaffel (SS) and Special Representative of the Reichsführer-SS in Albania during World War II. A commander of the Waffen-SS, he was killed in a car accident toward the end of the war.
From October 1937 to March 1938, he was involved in Sicherheitsdienst (SD) activities. Following the Anschluss he was appointed deputy chief of police in Vienna from 12 March 1938 to March 1940. In March 1938, he was involved in several high-profile meetings and public ceremonies with Heinrich Himmler, Kurt Daluege, Karl Wolff, Reinhard Heydrich and Ernst Kaltenbrunner reviewing Austrian police forces in Vienna. However, in 1940 he was removed from this post following accusations of corruption. Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007; . ( Aktualisierte 2. Auflage), p. 154. At the April 1938 parliamentary election, he was elected as a deputy to the Reichstag from Ostmark and retained this seat until his death. Josef Fitzthum entry in the Reichstag Members Database In 1940, Fitzthum was transferred to the Waffen-SS and appointed as an infantry commander in the SS-Totenkopfverbände. Between mid-April 1942 and May 1943, he was in the Netherlands as a commander for the establishment of the Aufstellung von Freiwilligen-Verbänden der Waffen-SS (voluntary associations of the Waffen-SS).
Inside Albanian wartime politics, he was a vocal opponent of collaborating with the Zogist / Royalist faction.Bernd Jürgen Fischer: Albania at War, 1939–1945. Purdue University Press, West Lafayette 1999, p. 212. An experienced political infighter, Fitzthum rapidly monopolized both the Reich powers in Albania (usurping even those of the German Foreign Ministry) and the local Albanian political systems of administration. In August 1944 he was promoted to SS-Gruppenführer und Generalleutnant der Waffen-SS and granted very broad powers. In September 1944, he directly appointed a three-man "control committee" for Tirana including Prengë Previzi (an obscure collaborating politician), the formal head of the Albanian secret police under the Nazis, and General Gustav von Myrdacz (an Austrian military officer who had retired to Tirana after World War I).
"Regular army officers decried Fitzthum's rash of arrests as well as the transporting of some 400 Albanian prisoners out of Albania, directly contravening existing agreements."Bernd Jürgen Fischer: Albania at War, 1939–1945. Purdue University Press, West Lafayette 1999, p. 226. By 2 October 1944, when the Germans decided to formally evacuate Albania, Fitzthum was perhaps the most powerful man in the entire country. During the withdrawal, Fitzthum helped Xhafer Deva set up, arm and equip a local administration and defence force in Kosovo. Upon returning to Nazi Germany he was posted to the 18th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Horst Wessel as a commander from 3 to 10 January 1945, when Fitzthum was killed in a car accident in Wiener Neudorf. He was buried in Vienna.
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