Early life Karl Freiherr Michel von Tüßling was born in
Tüßling,
Bavaria, as the second child of Alfred Freiherr
Michel v. Tüßling (1870–1957) and Hertha Gräfin Wolffskeel v. Reichenberg (1877–1948). He grew up on the
Upper Bavarian estate of Tüßling castle, which his father bought in 1905. After the
First World War he graduated from high school (
Abitur) and studied
forestry in Munich at the
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität. He graduated as a
Diplom-Forstwirt. Michel von Tüßling came from a
national conservative family. His father had served as a
Major (reserve) of the
Bavarian Army. His uncle Eberhard Wolffskeel von Reichenberg (1875–1954) served as a Major in the
Imperial Army. As chief of staff to Fakhri Pasha, deputy commander of the
Ottoman Fourth Army, he was actively involved in the
Armenian genocide. His uncle Richard von Michel-Raulino (1864–1926) was a committed member of the
German National People's Party as well as publisher and owner of the national conservative
Bamberger Tagblatt newspaper. His older sister Freda (1905–1936) was married to the Nazi Henning von Nordeck (1895–1978), who served as a
SS-Standartenführer in the staff of the
Reichsleitung SS, as early as 1934.
Nazi Party and SS career Michel von Tüßling joined the
SS (
Motorized Unit 2) in
Munich in April 1933, shortly after the
Nazi Party (NSDAP)
seized national power. In summer 1933 he was transferred to the
1st SS-Standarte in Munich, that was commanded by
Viktor Brack, who was also chief of staff to the
Reich Secretary of the NSDAP,
Reichsleiter Philipp Bouhler. In August 1934, Bouhler became police chairman of Munich, and only a month later, he was appointed chief of Adolf Hitler's
Chancellery. In 1935 Bouhler summoned Michel von Tüssling to Berlin, where he became a commissioned officer, rising to the rank of
Untersturmführer. He served in Hitler's Chancellery (KdF) and also became a staff officer to the
Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. Shortly after its foundation in December 1935, Michel von Tüßling became a member of the SS organization
Lebensborn. ,
Robert Ley with his wife Inga, and von Tüßling (visible behind the umbrella), Munich, 1939 In 1936 he was promoted to
Obersturmführer and became Bouhler's personal adjutant. Brack was appointed chief of Main Office 2 (Hauptamt II). Bouhler's office was responsible for all correspondences for Hitler which included private and internal communications, appeals from party courts, official judgments, and
clemency petitions. In 1937, he also became a staff officer at the
SS Main Office, and was promoted to
Hauptsturmführer in 1938. Michel von Tüßling continued his service in Hitler's Chancellery and the SS, and remained the personal adjutant of Bouhler throughout the
Aktion T4, the programme of
involuntary euthanasia, that ran officially from September 1939 to August 1941, killing more than 70,000 people. On 30 January 1941, Michel von Tüßling was promoted to
Sturmbannführer. In 1941 Bouhler and Himmler initiated
Aktion 14f13. Bouhler instructed the head of the Hauptamt II, Viktor Brack who had already been in charge of the various front operations of T4, to implement this order.
Aktion 14f13 killed 15,000–20,000
concentration camp prisoners. Many KdF employees who participated in T4 later joined
Operation Reinhard, the Nazi plan under
Odilo Globocnik to exterminate
Polish Jews in the
General Government district of German-
occupied Poland, that was executed from October 1941 till November 1943. In the 1943 and 1944 SS Officers list (
Dienstalterslisten der SS), Michel von Tüßling was listed under the number '2007', serving as a staff officer in the SS-Hauptamt. The SS-Hauptamt maintained for other branches of the SS, the "
paper trail" for such activities as the
Einsatzgruppen,
Final Solution and the commission of the
Holocaust. Later on 10 May 1945, Bouhler was captured and arrested by American troops. He committed suicide on 19 May 1945 while in the U.S. internment camp at
Zell am See in
Austria. Michel von Tüßling was interned at Regensburg Internment Camp, from where he provided an affidavit in defence of Viktor Brack in 1947. In this affidavit he also describes their (Brack, Bouhler, Michel von Tüßling) relation to Adolf Hitler's private secretary
Martin Bormann; (excerpt): During the Nuremberg "
Doctors' trial", Brack was accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity:
Nazi human experimentation,
mass murder under the guise of euthanasia, his relation to
Aktion 14f13, and his involvement to the implementation of the Final Solution. Brack was found guilty and executed at
Landsberg Prison in 1948. Michel von Tüßling was able to conceal his wartime KdF- and SS-activity from the American prosecutors. At the Nuremberg Doctors trial, he affirmed an affidavit that in September 1939 he was drafted into the
Luftwaffe, where he served until the end of the war. After his release from the detention center in 1948, he returned to Tüßling and worked as a farmer. Along with Brack and Bouhler, one of his close Nazi Party friends was the former Minister of Armaments and War Production
Albert Speer, who regularly visited him on
his estate following his release from
Spandau Prison in 1966. Michel von Tüßling died at Tüßling Castle in 1991.
Family Innocent Children, Heiligenstatt (Tüßling) Michel von Tüßling was married twice. His first marriage took place on the 16 May 1938 to Elisabeth von Stumm (1918–1996) in Berlin; divorced,
Traunstein, 22. December 1948. His second marriage took place on the 14 November 1960 to Ulrike Barth (1925–1999) in Munich. He had three children. His daughter, (born 1961), who inherited her father's estate, was from 1. May 2014 till 30. April 2020 mayor of
Tüßling (
CSU). In her first marriage she was married to Benedict Count
Batthyány (born 1960), whose aunt Margit Batthyàny
aka "The Killer Countess" (1911–1989), a daughter of
Heinrich Thyssen, maintained a reconvalescence home for members of the SS (
Rechnitz massacre). From 1999–2005 she was married to Christian Graf Bruges-von
Pfuel (* 1942), grandson of General der Panzertruppe
Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg. His daughter Ulrike (born 1962) married in 1988 Eckbert von Bohlen und Halbach (born 1956), a member of the
Krupp family and nephew of the industrialist
Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, who was convicted after World War II of crimes against humanity; divorced 1995. Michel von Tüßling's sister Freda (1905–1936) was married to the
Alter Kämpfer,
SS-Standartenführer Henning von Nordeck (1895–1978). His cousin Lilly (1892-1973) was married to
Willy Messerschmitt (1898–1978). The second husband of his cousin Marie (1893-1978),
Karl Freiherr von Thüngen (1893-1944) was a general in the
Wehrmacht who was executed in 1944 after the failed
20 July Plot. == Officer ranks ==