A search of the DIE ZEIT database of Nazi Party membership records appears to add a new detail to the historical record concerning Gustav Schwarzenegger, father of former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The database lists Gustav Schwarzenegger, born Aug. 1, 1907, as joining the Nazi Party on Jan. 1, 1941, under membership number 8,439,780. His occupation at the time is listed as Gendarmeriebeamter, an Austrian law-enforcement officer. The entry places him in Mürzzuschlag, in the Steiermark (Styria) region of Austria.
The finding appears to differ from information released more than two decades ago by the Simon Wiesenthal Center. At Arnold Schwarzenegger’s request, the Center investigated his father’s wartime background and reported that its research indicated Gustav Schwarzenegger had applied for Nazi Party membership in 1938. The reason for the apparent three-year gap between the reported application date and the Jan. 1, 1941, enrollment date listed in the DIE ZEIT database is not immediately clear.
According to contemporaneous reporting in the Los Angeles Times, Governor Schwarzenegger contributed financially to the Wiesenthal Center’s research.
The DIE ZEIT database also lists several other individuals with the Schwarzenegger surname from the Steiermark region, including Alois, Franz, Anna, Gotthelf, Maria (two individuals), Otto, Peter, Walter, and Viktor (two individuals). A shared surname alone does not establish any family relationship.
A separate DIE ZEIT database of SS records contains one entry for a Josef Schwarzenegger, born July 30, 1922. As previously stated, a shared surname alone does not establish any family relationship.The listing references Federal Archives file R 9361-III/190067 but notes that no digitized documents are currently available. The database further states that the name appears on a Berlin Document Center list of SS personnel and suggests that additional records may exist in the holdings of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office (Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt) at the German Federal Archives. However, other published documents listed Gustav in 1939 with Sturmabteilung (SA), Nazi stormtroopers,
Gustav Gottfried Schwarzenegger died Dec. 13, 1972, in Weiz, Austria.
The names of the mother and maternal grandfather of Governor Schwarzenegger do not come up as Party members in the database.
This note is intended solely to document the database entry and to note its apparent difference from previously published findings. Additional archival research would be needed to determine why the reported 1938 application and the 1941 membership date differ.
Additional information may be found at this New York Post link.
My previous research on three relatives of author Kurt Vonnegut to show Nazi Party membership appeared in the Cordova Times.