Leopold Pötsch

Leopold Pötsch (born November 18, 1853 in St. Andrä im Lavanttal ; † October 16, 1942 there ) was a history teacher at the secondary school in Linz and teacher of Adolf Hitler .

Life

Pötsch studied at the universities of Graz and Vienna , then taught at the K. k. Staats-Unter-Realschule in Graz and became a teacher in the school year 1890/91 at the K. k. Staats-Ober-Realschule in Linz, where he also worked as a librarian for the school library. Here he also taught the secondary school student and later dictator Adolf Hitler between 1900 and 1904 . In 1905 Pötsch became director of the Linz Lyceum . In addition to his apprenticeship, he was active in Linz as a community politician for the Habsburg- friendly German freedom electoral committee. He was also deputy chairman of the "Schutzverein Südmark" and the Jahn gymnastics club and the Upper Austrian national education club.

His preference was for the time of the Germanic peoples , he was convinced of the superiority of German culture and was enthusiastic about the Wilhelmine Empire . This fascination also carried over to the students. Adolf Hitler described Pötsch's teaching in his book Mein Kampf as “perhaps determining my whole later life”, although this term “is probably not free from subsequent exuberance”.

After his retirement in 1919, Pötsch lived again in his native St. Andrä, where he was a member of the municipal council from 1931 to 1938. However, he was involved in homeland security , the fighting force of the Christian Social Party and political opponents of the National Socialists.

According to his own statement, he learned by chance that Hitler had mentioned him in his book. He then contacted Hitler by letter. Hitler replied "exuberantly" and called him his "teacher, to whom I owe infinitely much, yes, who has partly given me the basis for the path I have now covered".

In the mid-1930s, Pötsch's opinion of Hitler is likely to have turned negative, possibly as a result of the bloody events of the July coup in 1934. For example, he refused to participate in a trip by Hitler's schoolmates from Linz to Hitler in Berlin in 1937, as well as to send a photograph , on the grounds that "because Hitler was an enemy of Austria today and, as an official, he had taken an oath to remain loyal to Austria". The Gauleitung Carinthia mentioned in a letter that at that time there were pictures of Engelbert Dollfuss and Hitler on Pötsch's desk .

For the National Socialists in Carinthia , however, he was a symbolic figure after the Anschluss . In 1938 the Kärntner Grenzruf reported on a special edition of 500 copies of Mein Kampf on the occasion of his 85th birthday. In 1941 he became an honorary citizen of his hometown. When Hitler visited Klagenfurt on April 21, 1941, a meeting took place. After his death, Pötsch received a state funeral.

In the summer of 1944, his widow Rosa, expressly referring to the "evidence of special esteem" Hitler had against Pötsch, advocated Father Johann Steinmayr SJ , who had been sentenced to death , but to no avail .

Fonts (selection)

• Commodus. Life, government and character, depicted according to the statements found to be valid by his three main biographers, Dio Cassius, Herodian and Aelius Lampridius. Dissertation , University of Graz, 1882 (handwritten)
• Contributions to the criticism of the emperor biographers Cassius Dio, Herodian, and Aeluis Lampadius on the basis of their reports on Emperor Commodus Antoninus (Graz 1885)
• Linz and the surrounding area in the service of geography object lessons (in 4 parts: Linz 1900, 1902, 1905, 1906)

literature

The article is largely based on:

• Christian Klösch: The Fiihrer's secret vassals. The putschists of July 1934 in the Carinthian Lavant Valley . Czernin Verlag, Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-7076-0234-0 , pp. 37-41.

Further:

• Eleonore Kandl: Hitler's picture of Austria . Dissertation, Vienna 1963, pp. 25–39.

supporting documents

1. ^ Michael Holzmann: Address book of the libraries of the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy. 1900, p. 132.
2. ↑ quoted from Adolf Hitler: Mein Kampf . Franz Eher Verlag, Munich 1943, pp. 10-13.
3. ↑ Joachim C. Fest: Hitler. 5th edition 1973, p. 62.
4. ↑ ^{a b} Klösch, p. 39.
5. ^ Eleonore Kandl: Hitler's picture of Austria . Dissertation Vienna 1963, p. 38. Quoted from Klösch, p. 40.
6. ↑ Austrian State Archives, Archives of the Republic, Bürckel Korrespondenz, cat., 85, folder 175, Schweiger, Karl. Quoted from Klösch, p. 40.
7. ↑ Othmar Plöckinger : History of a book: Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" 1922-1945. 189, footnote 106 , accessed April 11, 2014 . 
8. ↑ See Rosa Pötsch's petition for clemency to Adolf Hitler, quoted in: Benedicta Maria Kempner : Priest before Hitler's tribunals. 1996, ISBN 3-570-12292-1 , pp. 402f.
9. ↑ Josef Innerhofer: South Tyrolean martyrs at the time of National Socialism . Athesia, 1985, ISBN 88-7014-379-1 , p. 101.