Franz Josef Messner

Franz Josef Messner

Franz Josef Messner (born December 8, 1896 in Brixlegg / Tyrol; † April 23, 1945 in Mauthausen concentration camp ) was an Austrian businessman, Brazilian consul, Brazilian commercial attaché and from 1937 general director and chairman of the board of Semperit AG until his death in 1945 as an Austrian resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

Messner was born the son of general goods dealer Josef Messner and his wife Amalia Messner, née Ginther. He attended elementary school in Brixlegg, then for eight years the grammar school in Hall in Tirol with high school diploma. In 1915, at the age of 18, he volunteered for the 1st Regiment of the Tyrolean Kaiserjäger in Innsbruck and completed an identification course in Vienna . Then he was at Corps Command 7 in Temesvár , in 1916 he was transferred to the governor in Bucharest and in 1917 as a commercial advisor to the military governor in Odessa . In November 1918 he fled from there to Brest-Litowsk , where he was captured by Polish legionaries and imprisoned until January 1919. After liberation by the army "von der Goltz" , he returned home to Brixlegg. During his military service, he studied four semesters at the Export Academy / University of World Trade . His first civilian position was at the Austrian goods traffic office in Vienna, in the summer of 1919 he was transferred to Belgrade as a deputy branch manager, and in 1919 the provincial government of Tyrol was appointed to the management post of the regional purchasing office in Innsbruck. After this position was liquidated, he was director of the trading company "Habung" in Vienna three years later and took on a job in Dakar . On January 21, 1922, Franziska Theresia Kristinus married in Vienna (* January 21, 1889; † November 26, 1983). They lived together in Vienna's 18th district at Hasenauerstraße 61.

In 1925 he emigrated to São Paulo in Brazil, initially for a year, where he was a respected European expert on coffee exports . In 1926 he founded the colonial company “Messner, Commissioner for Colonial Goods ” in Vienna , renamed “Union-Zuckerhandelsgesellschaft” from 1928, and a little later founded the “Brasil-Kaffee-Gesellschaft” with a Brazilian in Vienna. In 1928 Messner became the Brazilian consul in Vienna and worked as a commercial attaché at the Brazilian Ministry of Commerce. He obtained Brazilian citizenship on October 13, 1931. He was the general agent of the Brazilian Coffee Institute in São Paulo for Austria , Hungary and Czechoslovakia . In 1929 he bought his own coffee and cotton farm (including castor oil and cattle farming) near São Paulo and an orangery in Pedra di Quaradiba near Rio de Janeiro . Since 1926 he had been in Brazil for several weeks each year, in 1930 he crashed into the ocean in an airplane on April 13 and was rescued.

From 1934 he played a key role in the restructuring of several Austrian companies as an independent industrial consultant.

In 1936, Franz Messner was permanently employed by Credit-Anstalt and took care of the renovation of the Semperit works. In 1937 he was appointed General Director and Chairman of the Board of “SEMPERIT Österreichisch-Amerikanische-Gummiwerke-Aktiengesellschaft Wien” . Its task consisted of rapid modernization and adaptation to the highly developed standard of German industry. Despite close cooperation with the German Continental Gummiwerke AG from 1939 onwards , with the help of the main shareholders Creditanstalt-Bankverein and the Reithoffer group, he managed to keep Semperit independent of German capital (together they held 65% of Semperit shares) (result at the end of the war: Semperit was not German property and therefore did not have to be handed over to the Allies, but Russian dismantling took place on a large scale). In March 1938 he joined the NSV ( National Socialist People's Welfare ) and in May 1938 the DAF ( German Labor Front ), in 1943 he became a member of the Chamber of Labor of the DAF Niederdonau and was a member of the DAF Reich Committee for community and wage issues.

On June 3, 1939, he flew to Brazil by zeppelin, fearing a relative who worked for the National Socialists , while pretending to be ill . Messner traveled with an official order from the Reich Ministry of Economics to procure natural rubber , he was able to achieve 3,000 tons, but a complete shipload was sunk on the open sea. Franz Messner returned to his workers after just six months, was taken prisoner by the French on an Italian steamer and was interned in Casablanca for 30 days on charges of espionage . He was released after the invasion of German troops. Together with his wife, who came to Spain by plane, he flew to Vienna, where he was received “with all honors”.

From August 15, 1940, he resumed his executive position at Semperit. In 1940, after merging with numerous smaller companies with its three main plants in Traiskirchen , Wimpassing and Stadlau and the integration of the Matador production facility in Pressburg , Semperit became a company with 8,000 employees. Business trips took place regularly to Zurich , Basel , Paris , Brussels and Milan and of course to the affiliated companies / branches in Pressburg / Slovakia, Budapest / Hungary, Bucharest / Romania and to Istanbul / Ankara . During this time he developed the corporate mission statement with the core of the "Semperit family" as a counterweight to the company-related "N.-S. operating community".

Franz Messner introduced social improvements at Semperit by 1943: Extremely primitive sanitary facilities were replaced by new modern ones, shower rooms and cloakroom racks were created, a factory kitchen was newly set up for all employees, and the “factory director's park” was opened to everyone. A works doctor, a medical station and an in-house rest home were added. A company health insurance scheme was expanded to include all companies, and average pay and child benefits were introduced. In addition, cultural events took place.

In the Semperit factory in Traiskirchen, among others, “voluntary Belgian guest workers”, Polish forced laborers , prisoners and Belgian, Italian and French prisoners of war were deployed. In 1943 a barrack camp was set up for Soviet prisoner-of-war families from the Stalingrad area. In Birkenau (Polish: Brzezinka) near the concentration and extermination camp ( Auschwitz (Polish: Oswiecim )) a separate secondary and production camp for IG Farben was built by concentration camp prisoners - Auschwitz-Monowitz - in which the synthetic rubber developed by Semperit " Buna " should be produced (the Buna production was never started there because of the invasion of Soviet troops). The life expectancy of the work details there was sometimes less than two weeks.

In 1936 Franz Josef Messner came into contact with the Viennese chaplain Heinrich Maier , born on February 16, 1908 , who expressed his concern about possible chaotic conditions in Austria in the event of a defeat of the German Empire. It was through him that Messner met the concert pianist Barbara Issakides , who was born in Vienna on May 31, 1914 . Messner had good contacts with representatives from industry, business and finance, such as Ernst Kraus, director of Siemens-Schuckert-Werke , Josef Joham , director of Creditanstalt-Bankverein, Gina Böhm, manager at Semperit-Budapest, Franz Josef Riediger, Semperit representative in Istanbul as well as politicians. In 1943, Kaplan Maier asked Messner to visit the Austrian emigrant lawyer Holitscher in Zurich. This offered the handover of an American army transmitter. As early as the summer of 1942, the resistance group was able to send the "Memorandum" drawn up by Maier, Sokal and Legradi to the Allies , addressed to the British and Soviet Foreign Ministers, in which a current social analysis, military and economic information and the goals of a new Austria were presented. However, receipt has only been confirmed by the BBC . At the end of 1942, Barbara Issakidis was able to contact Allen Welsh Dulles , the head of the new branch of the American secret service OSS ( Office of Strategic Services ), for the first time in Zurich . At the end of 1943 she and Messner even traveled together. Here Messner apparently provided important information for the first time about the German production situation for synthetic rubber (Buna) and about rocket production. The OSS has announced support. Messner also had direct contacts with the OSS in Istanbul via Riediger and also provided them with extensive information under the cover name "Cassia" - but often doubted by the Allies - in Bern under the code names "Diana" or "Oyster". He reports in detail on fuel depots in Vienna, ammunition and weapons factories as well as aircraft production information for the Vienna area, rocket production (including V weapons in Peenemünde ), metal processing, but also on mass executions. In the spring of 1944 he met Dulles several times in Bern . A grant of 100,000 RM was also discussed. A telegraphic message about this with a cover address was received in Budapest, where Messner, who was staying there to clarify the money issue, was arrested. Ms. Issakidis, on the other hand, traveled from there to Vienna to the address concerned and was arrested there. The betrayal was carried out by OSS double agents.

Messner was imprisoned by the Gestapo in Vienna . The second Semperit secretary and, as a member of Messner's resistance group, his confidante, Evelyn Wagner, recruited three young German deserters in November 1944 to free Franz Messner from the regional court. However, they were arrested by a police patrol. Evelyn Wagner was subsequently imprisoned by the Gestapo and was only released after the liberation of Vienna by the Soviet Union's Red Army.

There is a detailed statement from the arrest or bunker commando leader in the Mauthausen concentration camp about Messner's last hours, SS Oberscharführer Josef Niedermayer. Accordingly, Messner was taken to the Mauthausen concentration camp in November 1944 together with the later Austrian ministers Felix Hurdes and Lois Weinberger . He was arrested in the bunker, but brought back to Vienna in a collective transport in January 1945. On April 2nd or 3rd, Messner came again with a collective transport from Vienna directly to the bunker at Niedermayer and his subordinates SS-Unterscharführer Proksch and SS-Rottenführer Rommel without a regular admission of prisoners. There is also a report by fellow inmate Burde, who was employed as camp leader and camp clerk and who had to keep the death register. Around April 18, Messner approached Burde as a Brazilian because he was entitled to parcels and identified himself as a Semperitler, but did not mention his name, but his full, white, unshaven hair, which was known in the camp, was striking. After the relevant SS-Scharführer had given the assignment, Messner received the parcel with the promise to share it with Burde. On the following day, April 20, half of the package was still found at Messner's place in Block 10, Franz Messner himself had been picked up to the bunker, under whose neighboring building - the infirmary - was the gas chamber . On April 23, 1945 at 3 p.m., the commandant of the Mauthausen concentration camp, SS-Standartenführer Franz Ziereis personally ordered the immediate transfer of 40 prisoners, including Franz Messner, to the gas cellar in the bunker. Ziereis personally poured the Zyklon B chunks into the gas filling device, and Messner was burned with the other victims in the crematorium the following night . As early as January 1945, neither the Reich Main Security Office, the Reich Ministry of Economics, nor the Reich rubber representative had objections to an exchange of prisoners already approved by the Brazilian government. Only the judiciary blocked itself until Messner's bitter end. Even the naturalization confirmed by the Brazilian government could not save his life.

literature

• Volker Sartorti: Biography Dr. Franz Josef Messner . Eigendruck, Elmshorn, Germany, 2003

See also

• Walter Caldonazzi

Web links

• Gestapo photo Franz Josef Messner

swell

• Parish of Brixlegg, Volume VII, Sheet 99
• Volksgerichtshof, 5th Senate in Vienna, judgment on 5H96 / 44-6J158 / 44g and 5H100 / 44-6J165 / 44g of October 28, 1944 according to DÖW 19793/109
• Parish office St. Othmar Vienna, Tom. XVI, fol. 315
• Hansjakob Stehle : Eminences gray - dark existences . Munich 2000, pp. 98-104, identical to DIE PRESSE, supplement Spectrum / Signs of the Times of February 14, 1998: Hansjakob Stehle: Spion on the pulpit
• GESTAPO interrogation protocol from Messner from 11./12. April and May 24, 1944, Federal Archives, Potsdam Departments
• Franziska Messner, quoted in OSR. Fritz Kirchmair "District chronicle of the Kufstein district 1933–1945", Schwoich / Kufstein 1976, according to the Kufstein City Archives and DÖW 12.048
• Semperit Reifen AG: Anniversary publication 150 [75?] Years Semperit-Werke , 1972, p. 62f.
• Semperit Reifen AG: A house in Traiskirchen, Semperit Reifen - the first 100 years . Traiskirchen 1996, p. 42ff.
• Franz Messner, in excerpts from the family days 1940 and 1942 in Dipl. Ing. Hans Schulze (1933–1945 Deputy Director Semperitwerk Traiskirchen and chief chemist Semperit): Private collection of various documents and correspondence
• Julius Böheimer: The Chronicle of the SEMPERIT Traiskirchen . Baden 1996, pp. 8-13.
• Franz Messner to Dipl. Ing. Hans Schulze on September 18, 1942 on the occasion of the 26t daily output
• Ernst Klee: German Medicine in the Third Reich . Frankfurt am Main 2001, pp. 11-16.
• Indictment against Messner, quoted from the Federal Archives, Departments Potsdam
• Helene Legradi-Sokal: Report on the resistance group Legradi-Sokal-Dr. Messner-Andreas Hofer and others DÖW 1553
• Siegfried Beer: Arcel / Cassia / Redbird. In: DÖW yearbook. 1993, ISBN 3-901142-13-4 , pp. 75-100.
• Evelyn Reynolds b. Wagner: Reason for arrest and letter from the SEMPERIT works council in DÖW 20000 / W19
• Lois Weinberger: facts, encounters and conversations . Österreichischer Verlag, 1948, p. 336, quoted from “Poisoned Years: 1933–1945” / Kufstein District / Documentation, Museum of Local History on the Fortress Archive U662a-k
• Ernst Martin, Innsbruck gas works director: Memorandum of the Niedermayer interview . Dachau May 8, 1946 according to the Kufstein City Archives and DÖW 12.048
• Hans von Scherer, Director of Semperitwerke: Memo about my discussion with Ing. Burde . Vienna April 19, 1946 according to the Kufstein City Archives and DÖW 12.048
• Foreign Office, Ministerialrat von Ammon, on January 16, 1945 to the Reich Ministry of Justice in DÖW 19793/109
• Franz Josef Messner: The basics of coffee production in the Brazilian state of San Paulo . Vienna, Univ., Diss., 1934, Bibl .: AHB Sig: D-3659
• Death certificate Franziska Messner, Pottenstein registry office

DÖW: Foundation Documentation Archive of Austrian Resistance, A-1010 Vienna, Wipplingerstraße 8