He saw 15 months of front-line service with Feldjägerbattalion 21 on the Italian front as an officer candidate in the rank of a sergeant with the pay grade of a lance corporal.

[4] Frauenfeld first came to prominence in the politics of Vienna, initially in Hermann Hiltl's movement, before becoming a highly influential figure amongst the city's Nazis during the late 1920s.

[6] In this role he became hugely active, organising over 1,000 propaganda meetings in three years and founding the party newspaper Der Kampfruf (The Battle Cry) with his own money in 1930, before ultimately running four Nazi dailies and four weeklies.

[7] Frauenfeld's success saw him considered for the post of leader of the Austrian Nazi Party in 1931, although ultimately Theodor Habicht was chosen for the role by Gregor Strasser on Hitler's advice.

[6] Despite his success as an organiser, Frauenfeld also had a reputation for a domineering and impolite temperament, something which ensured a frosty relationship with other leading Austrian Nazis Josef Leopold and Alfred Proksch.

[10][13] In November 1935, he was named to the Reich Cultural Senate and became a Reichsredner (national speaker) for the Party, engaging in propaganda activities.

[10] Following the March 1938 Anschluss, of which Frauenfeld had long been an advocate, the popular local was a leading choice for the role of Gauleiter of Vienna.

He was subsequently assigned as the foreign ministry liaison officer to army units in France (July 1940), the Balkans (April 1941) and the Soviet Union (June 1941).

[16] On 1 September 1942, Frauenfeld was appointed as the Generalkommissar for the Generalbezirk Krym-Taurien with headquarters in Melitopol where he served under Reichskommissar Erich Koch, of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine.

[17] In fact, Frauenfeld had jurisdiction over only an area north of the Isthmus of Perekop, with the Crimean peninsula remaining under military administration throughout the war.

[18] In this role, Professor Dietrich Orlow grouped him along with the Generalkommissar for Belarus, Wilhelm Kube, as being a "rehab" - that is to say a Nazi who had fallen from grace but was able to make a comeback in the eastern administration.

[19] Frauenfeld did not share the ruthlessness of Koch, and the Austrian's unwillingness to follow a policy of brutality towards the local population led to a series of public spats between the two men.

[23] Frauenfeld's role had originally been intended for his fellow Austrian Josef Leopold, although his death left the position open.