Edmund Glaise - Horstenau Edmund Glaise - Horstenau ( also known as Edmund Glaise von Horstenau ; 27 February 1882 – 20 July 1946 ) was an Austrian officer in the Bundesheer , last Vice - Chancellor of Austria before the 1938 " Anschluss " , and general in the German Wehrmacht during the Second World War . Life . Born in Braunau am Inn the son of an officer , Glaise - Horstenau attended the Theresian Military Academy and served in World War I on the General Staff of the Austro - Hungarian Army , where he from 1915 headed the press department of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces . After the war he studied history at the University of Vienna , beside his employment at the Austrian War Archives ( as director from 1925 to 1938 ) . He also achieved the rank of a colonel at the Austrian Heeresnachrichtenamt in 1934 . Originally a monarchist , Glaise - Horstenau became the number - two man in the hierarchy of the banned Austrian Nazi Party in the middle and late 1930s behind its leader Arthur Seyss - Inquart . To improve relations with Nazi Germany , he was appointed a member of the " Staatsrat " of the Federal State of Austria from 1934 in the rank of a Minister Without Portfolio , and from 1936 to 1938 served as Federal Minister for the Interior in the cabinet of Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg , after being appointed under pressure from Adolf Hitler . At the meeting at the Berghof in Berchtesgaden on February 12 , 1938 between Hitler and Schuschnigg , Germany demanded among other things that Glaise - Horstenau be made Minister of War in a new , pro - Nazi government , and that he would thereafter establish close operational relations between the German and Austrian Armies , leading ultimately to the assimilation of the Austrian into the German system . After Schuschnigg had to resign on March 11 , Glaise - Horstenau served as Vice - Chancellor of Austria under Seyß - Inquart for two days . Croatia . After the " Anschluss " he entered the Wehrmacht and was appointed as Plenipotentiary General in the Independent State of Croatia on April 14 , 1941 . There , he was shocked by the atrocities of the Ustaše ( Croatian Fascist para - militaries ) , which he repeatedly denounced and opposed . As early as 28 June 1941 , he reported the following to the German High Command , the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht ( OKW ) : On 10 July , he added : The lack of response from the OKW at Glaise - Horstenau ' s criticism of the Ustaše ' s methods increasingly frustrated him , and caused deep tension with the dictator of Croatia Ante Pavelić . By 1944 , he had grown so dismayed at the atrocities he had witnessed that he became deeply implicated in the Lorković - Vokić plot , with the purpose of overthrowing Pavelić ' s regime and replacing it with a pro - Allied government . The subsequent failure of this attempt turned Glaise - Horstenau into " persona non grata " both for the Croatian establishment and the Nazis . Consequently , during the first week of September , Pavelić and German ambassador Siegfried Kasche conspired together and effected his removal on September 25 . Glaise - Horstenau ' s withdrawal from the scene opened the door for the total politicalization of the Croatian armed forces , which occurred over the next several months . Glaise - Horstenau was then passed into " Führer - Reserve " and entrusted with the obscure task of Military Historian of the South East until his capture by the US Army on May 5 , 1945 . Fearing extradition to Yugoslavia , he committed suicide at Langwasser military camp near Nuremberg , Germany , on July 20 , 1946 . Legacy . In his time as a military diplomat in Zagreb he began his autobiography , which he continued during custody in 1945 / 46 until shortly before his death . His extensive recollections offer a portrait of the Austrian élites during the last years of the Austrian - Hungarian monarchy and the interwar time . They were collected by Austrian state archivist Peter Broucek , who edited and published them between 1980 and 1988 .