Maria Fischer (resistance fighter, 1897)

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Maria (Marie) Fischer, 1957

Maria Fischer , also Marie Fischer , (born July 30, 1897 in St. Pölten , † February 6, 1962 in Vienna ) was an Austrian silk winder and Trotskyist resistance fighter against Austrofascism and National Socialism .

Life

Youth and origin

Maria Fischer came to St. Pölten as one of three daughters of saddlery assistant Johann Fischer and Antonia Fischer (also Antonie Fischer ), née. Crown hedgehog to the world. Her sisters were Antonie (* 1893, † November 2, 1934 in Vienna, buried on November 6, 1934 at Vienna's Südwestfriedhof ) and Amalie (* February 17, 1895 in Melk , † July 19, 1943 in Brno by suicide ) Fischer.

After completing elementary school, she learned the trade of silk winder and worked as a textile worker in various companies and also at home . She moved from St. Pölten to Vienna with her mother and sister Antonie.

In 1916 she became a member of the Social Democratic Party and the Free Trade Unions . On September 23, 1918, she gave birth to her only son, Karl Fischer , whom she confidently called "Kegel" - a medieval expression for an illegitimate child. This name was later used by Karl Fischer as a code name in the underground .

Resistance, Persecution, Detention and Liberation

Protective detention order from the Reich Security Main Office against Maria Fischer, May 13, 1943, signed with “ Signed : Dr. Kaltenbrunner "
Maria Fischer, Gestapo-Bild, StaPo-Leitstelle Wien, IV / 43.NR.7963, ID card file of the Vienna Gestapo
Maria Fischer's first letter to her son Karl in the USSR, April 26, 1955
Maria Fischer with her son Karl in June 1955

Maria Fischer came into contact with the “ Revolutionary Communists of Austria ” (RKÖ) through her son in 1935/36 , she became their member and made her apartment at Gusenleithnergasse 11 in Vienna available as a secretariat for underground work.

Fischer's son Karl was arrested in 1936 and on September 23, 1937, together with Georg Scheuer and two other like-minded comrades in the Viennese Trotskyist trial, sentenced to five years imprisonment for high treason , aggravated by a quarterly fast, but with the February amnesty in 1938 prematurely from prison in Krems -Stone fired. He then emigrated via Switzerland to Belgium and France , where he was active in the resistance against National Socialism . Arrested in France in 1943 , he was extradited to the Gestapo in 1944 and then deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp .

After Austria was annexed to Germany, Maria Fischer joined the Trotskyist resistance group "Gegen den Strom" (Gegen den Strom), and in turn made her apartment available as the headquarters. Her friends and like-minded people affectionately called her "Mitzi-Aunt". She used the word "net" as an alias for her underground work.

During this time she worked for the Viennese company Hans Amfaldern as an unskilled worker. On January 27, 1941, the Reich Trustee of Labor for the Vienna-Niederdonau economic area sentenced her to a fine of 8 Reichsmarks for refusal to work on a Sunday (see pictures of the administrative penalty notice in the documents gallery).

In April 1943 the resistance group “Against the Current” was set up by the Gestapo. During a house search, Maria Fischer found a typewriter, paper and other utensils for the production of leaflets, which she had hidden in specially made secret compartments of laundry boxes. She was arrested by the Gestapo on April 14, 1943 . Only later, on May 13, 1943, was a protective custody order issued by the Reich Main Security Office for “ treasonable activity ” (see picture of the protective custody order on the right). On December 10, 1943, she was sentenced by the 5th Senate of the People's Court in Vienna to five years in prison and five years in loss of honor for preparing for high treason . Her comrades-in-law Franz Kascha (born January 29, 1907 in Vienna) and Josef Jakobovits (born March 31, 1916) were sentenced to death by the People's Court and executed in the Vienna Regional Court on March 13, 1944 , the following sentences were passed on other members of the resistance group: Leopold Kascha (* December 18, 1908 in Vienna, † 1957) ten years in prison and ten years loss of honor, Paula Binder (* September 19, 1913 in Vienna) two years in prison and two years loss of honor, Johann Putz (* August 1, 1915 in Vienna) and Ludwig Weseli (born July 8, 1886 in Vienna) one year in prison.

As Maria Fischer's surviving documents show, she initially spent her imprisonment in various Vienna prisons : initially in the police prison of the Rossauer Lände police building , then in the Vienna Josefstadt Prison attached to the Vienna State Court for Criminal Matters , and in the no longer existing (official) Court prison II, Vienna- Leopoldstadt , Schiffamtsgasse 1, in the place of which the Federal Office for Metrology and Surveying is located today , and after her conviction in the remand prison Vienna II , Vienna- Josefstadt , Hernalser belt 6-12.

She was then deported to the Jauer women's prison, where she was imprisoned until the end of January 1945. The then German city of Jauer was part of the district of Liegnitz in the province of Lower Silesia from January 18, 1941 during the time of the German Empire . On February 12, 1945, the city was captured by the Red Army . On April 28, 1945 Jauer was placed under Polish administration by the Soviet military authorities in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement and after 1945 renamed Jawor [ ˈjavɔr ]. Jawor has been a district town of the Polish Lower Silesian Voivodeship since 1999 .

Maria Fischer was moved from the women's penitentiary there before the Soviet occupation of the city of Jauer and was imprisoned in the women's prison in Leipzig-Kleinmeusdorf from February 1, 1945 . She was liberated by the United States Army on April 18, 1945 and released on April 20, 1945 (see pictures of the discharge note in the documents gallery).

Since 1945

After her release from the women's prison in Leipzig-Kleinmeusdorf, she made her way to Linz on foot , where she was rediscovered in Nietzschestrasse by chance - still in prison clothing - by her son Karl, who had previously been released from the Buchenwald concentration camp . Her son took her in in his apartment in Linz.

On January 21, 1947, Karl Fischer was kidnapped on the Nibelungen Bridge in Linz on the Soviet-American demarcation line by the Soviet secret service NKVD and sentenced to fifteen years " corrective labor camp" for alleged espionage .

After the inexplicable disappearance of her son, Maria Fischer filed a notice of absence on January 22, 1947, but without success. In vain did his like-minded people pull out all the stops to get official Austrian authorities to intervene with the Soviet authorities. Karl Fischer was deported to the Soviet Union and, despite a suicide attempt, was imprisoned in several Gulag camps in Eastern Siberia ( Kolyma , Jagoda, Maxim Gorki, Dnjeprovsk, Lazo) until 1955 , then from April 1952 in the "political isolator Alexandrowsk" near Irkutsk .

Maria Fischer found out about her son's fate very late and was only able to contact him in writing in the spring of 1955 despite multiple requests for permission to exchange letters (see picture on the right: Maria Fischer's first letter to her son Karl in the USSR, April 26, 1955) .

After returning from Linz to Vienna, she was able to receive her son Karl, who had been repatriated from the Soviet Union in connection with the conclusion of the Austrian State Treaty, on June 20, 1955 in Wiener Neustadt and take him back to her apartment in Gusenleithnergasse in Vienna.

During her retirement she looked after the Grinzing apartment of her son Josef Hindel's childhood friend .

Maria Fischer grave, Ilz cemetery, Styria, 2019

Maria Fischer died on February 6, 1962 after a stroke in Vienna. Like her son Karl a year later, she was buried at Vienna's south-west cemetery (burial date February 15, 1962). At the beginning of 1991 Karl Fischer's wife Maria Johanna Fischer had both deceased exhumed and cremated . Both urns were then transferred to Ilz , Styria , and buried on March 25, 1991 in the local cemetery there.

Document gallery

  • Administrative penalty notice of the Reich Trustee of Labor for the Vienna - Lower Danube area against Maria Fischer, January 27, 1941, page 1

  • Administrative penalty notice of the Reich Trustee of Labor for the Vienna-Niederdonau area against Maria Fischer, January 27, 1941, page 2

  • Identity card for the German Reich , Maria Fischer, October 5, 1942

  • Letterhead of a letter from Maria Fischer from the Jauer women's prison , written on a form on the prison stationery , April 30, 1944

  • Maria Fischer discharge certificate, Leipzig-Kleinmeusdorf women's prison, April 20, 1945, front side

  • Maria Fischer discharge certificate, Leipzig-Kleinmeusdorf women's prison, April 20, 1945, reverse side

  • By fountain pen penned letter Karl Fischer for the 49th birthday of his mother Mary, 29 July 1946

literature

  • Cécile Denis: Continuités et divergences dans la presse clandestine de résistants allemands et autrichiens en France pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale: KPD, KPÖ, Revolutionary Communists et trotskystes . Thèse de doctorat réalisée sous la direction d'Hélène Camarade, soutenue publiquement le 10 December 2018 à l'université Bordeaux-Montaigne (dissertation at the University of Bordeaux-Montaigne ), Bordeaux 2018. (French)
  • Roland Fischer: Fischer Maria (Marie); Seidenwinderin and resistance fighter. In: Ilse Korotin (ed.): BiografıA. Lexicon of Austrian Women. Volume 1: A-H. Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2016, ISBN 978-3-205-79590-2 , pp. 832–834.
  • Historical association of the market town of Ilz and the surrounding area (ed.): Resistance against the dictatorships in Austria and Europe in the first half of the 20th century - and what that has to do with Ilz! Maria Fischer (resistance fighter, 1897–1962). In: Historia Illenz No. 12, Volume 3, Ilz 2020, p. 1 and p. 6–9.
  • Fritz Keller : To the Gulag from East and West. Karl Fischer. Worker and revolutionary. ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-88332-046-3 .
  • Fritz Keller: Le Trotskysme en Autriche de 1934 a 1945 . In: Cahier Leon Trotsky No. 5, Paris Janvier-Mars 1980. (French)
  • Fritz Keller: Quelques biographies de militants de l'Opposition autrichienne . In: Cahier Leon Trotsky No. 5, Paris Janvier-Mars 1980. (French)
  • Georg Scheuer: Only fools fear nothing. Scenes from the Thirty Years War, 1915–1945. Publishing house for social criticism, Vienna 1991, ISBN 3-85115-133-X .

Web links

Commons : Maria Fischer  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ilse Korotin : Making women visible. The project “biografiA. database and lexicon of austrian women ”. (PDF) ( Memento of October 18, 2017 in the Internet Archive ), p. 8f.
  2. ↑ a b Amalie Fischer's death certificate , Brno-Stadt registry office, No. 816/1943 of August 17, 1943, privately owned. According to this death certificate, her mother's name was Antonie Fischer, nee Kronigel. Amalie Fischer's Jewish partner, an art dealer by profession, had previously been arrested by the National Socialist authorities in Brno and deported to an unknown concentration camp, where he presumably died (verbal information to the first author of the article from Maria Johanna Fischer, Maria Fischer's daughter-in-law).
  3. ^ Antonie Fischer party of November 3, 1934; privately owned.
  4. ↑ Historical grave search Friedhöfe Wien , friedhoefewien.at, input: Antonie Fischer, Friedhof: Südwest, year of burial: 1934, historical grave search; Grave data: Group 27, Row 4, Number 20; accessed on November 23, 2019.
  5. ^ Fritz Keller : In the Gulag from East and West. Karl Fischer. Worker and revolutionary. ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-88332-046-3 , p. 10.
  6. ↑ Lily Braun: The question of women: their historical development and economic side , chapter House industry and home work: The textile house industry. . Berlin 1901. In: lexikus.de, accessed on October 16, 2019.
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Christine Chancellor: Fischer, Maria (Marie); Code name: Netz, Seidenwinderin and resistance fighter , page of the "biografiA" module project Austrian women in resistance at the Institute for Science and Art , Vienna.
  8. ^ A b c Stefan Karner: The game "cone". In: Kleine Zeitung Spezial: 1945. From the Third Reich to the Second Republic. Ed .: Christian Less, Graz 2015, ISBN 978-3-902819-48-2 , p. 142.
  9. ↑ a b Cécile Denis: Continuités et divergences dans la presse clandestine de résistants allemands et autrichiens en France pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale: KPD, KPÖ, Revolutionary Communists et trotskystes , thesis of the dissertation at the University of Bordeaux Montaigne, Bordeaux 2018, accessed on 20 June 2020. (French)
  10. ^ Fritz Keller: In the Gulag from East and West. Karl Fischer. Worker and revolutionary. ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-88332-046-3 , p. 27.
  11. ^ Fritz Keller: In the Gulag from East and West. Karl Fischer. Worker and revolutionary. ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-88332-046-3 , p. 31.
  12. ^ Fritz Keller: In the Gulag from East and West. Karl Fischer. Worker and revolutionary. ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-88332-046-3 , p. 27ff.
  13. ↑ Georg Scheuer : Only fools fear nothing. Scenes from the Thirty Years War, 1915–1945. Verlag für Gesellschaftskritik, Vienna 1991, ISBN 3-85115-133-X , p. 157ff.
  14. ^ Fritz Keller: In the Gulag from East and West. Karl Fischer. Worker and revolutionary. ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-88332-046-3 , pp. 70ff.
  15. ↑ Amfaldern KG . In: fold3.com: comprehensive company information about Amfaldern KG from this and various following pages (click on!), Also about the branch in Vienna 14, Mitisgasse 9/11, where Maria Fischer worked, accessed on October 16, 2019.
  16. ↑ Administrative penalty notice of the Reich trustee for labor for the Vienna-Niederdonau economic area of ​​January 27, 1941, see picture of the regulatory penalty notice in the document gallery, original in private ownership.
  17. ↑ a b Documentation archive of the Austrian resistance: no longer anonymous - photos from the identification file of the Gestapo Vienna, Gestapo victims . For the profile search Marie Fischer, geb. 07/30/1897 , click on the "More information" button on the following page: [1]
  18. ^ Protective detention order from the Reich Main Security Office in Berlin of May 13, 1943, see picture of the protective detention order; Abbreviation "kfl" (religion): non-denominational; Original in private ownership.
  19. ^ Austrian Stalin victims. Memorial. Junius-Verlags- und Vertriebsgesellschaft, Vienna 1990, ISBN 3-900370-81-8 , p. 96.
  20. ↑ a b Daily reports of the Gestapo , November 1, 1943 - December 31, 1943, Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance , No. 8477, p. 4.
  21. ↑ Documentation archive of the Austrian resistance: No longer anonymous - photos from the identification file of the Gestapo Vienna, Gestapo victims . For the profile search Franz Kascha , click on the button "More information" on the following page: [2]
  22. ↑ Documentation archive of the Austrian resistance: No longer anonymous - photos from the identification file of the Gestapo Vienna, Gestapo victims . For the profile search Leopold Kascha , click on the button "More information" on the following page: [3]
  23. ↑ No longer anonymous, ID card index of the Gestapo Vienna: Franz Kascha ( Memento from April 14, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  24. ↑ Consecration site (former execution room), memorial plaques with the names of 536 people executed , page on nachkriegsjustiz.at, accessed on May 5, 2015.
  25. ^ Fritz Keller: Trotskyism in Austria ( Memento from August 16, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) (English).
  26. ↑ All of the documents mentioned (various letters and a postcard) are privately owned.
  27. ↑ See documents gallery: Letterhead of a letter from Maria Fischer from the Jauer prison, written on a form of the prison stationery on April 30, 1944.
  28. ↑ a b Leipzig-Kleinmeusdorf Womens' Prison , article on frankfallaarchive.org (English), accessed on October 12, 2018.
  29. ^ Certificate of discharge from the Leipzig-Kleinmeusdorf women's prison dated April 20, 1945 (see documents gallery), original in private ownership.
  30. ^ Fritz Keller: In the Gulag from East and West. Karl Fischer. Worker and revolutionary. ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-88332-046-3 , pp. 95ff.
  31. ^ Karl Fischer , autobiography. In: Austrian Stalin Victims. Memorial. Junius-Verlags- und Vertriebsgesellschaft, Vienna 1990, ISBN 3-900370-81-8 , pp. 96-105.
  32. ^ Interview by Fritz Keller with Emily Rosdolsky on June 7, 1983.
  33. ^ Fritz Keller: In the Gulag from East and West. Karl Fischer. Worker and revolutionary. ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-88332-046-3 , p. 103ff.
  34. ^ John Barron : KGB. Work and organization of the Soviet secret service in East and West. Knaur-Verlag, Munich 1974, ISBN 3-426-03577-4 , p. 391.
  35. ^ Confirmation of the notification of absence, Federal Police Commissioner Urfahr , Criminal Investigation Department, dated April 25, 1947, privately owned.
  36. ^ Fritz Keller: In the Gulag from East and West. Karl Fischer. Worker and revolutionary. ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-88332-046-3 , p. 141.
  37. ↑ Bernhard Kuschey: The exception of survival. Ernst and Hilde Federn. A biographical study and analysis of the internal structures of the concentration camp. Psychosozial-Verlag, Giessen 2003, ISBN 3-89806-173-6 , p. 844.
  38. ^ Fritz Keller: In the Gulag from East and West. Karl Fischer. Worker and revolutionary. ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-88332-046-3 , p. 103ff.
  39. ↑ Hugo Dewar: Assassins at Large, Being a fully documented and hithero unpublished account of the executions outside Russia ordered by the GPU. Wingate-Verlag, London & New York 1951, pp. 169ff.
  40. ^ Maria Fischer, first postcard to Karl Fischer in the USSR from April 26, 1955, in private possession.
  41. ^ Fritz Keller: In the Gulag from East and West. Karl Fischer. Worker and revolutionary. ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-88332-046-3 , p. 143.
  42. ^ Austrian Stalin victims. Memorial. Junius-Verlags- und Vertriebsgesellschaft, Vienna 1990, ISBN 3-900370-81-8 , p. 96.
  43. ↑ death certificate of the registry office Vienna- Penzing , no. 1130/1962 of 8 February 1962, the privately owned.
  44. ↑ Historical grave search Friedhöfe Wien , friedhoefewien.at, input: Maria Fischer, Friedhof: Südwest, year of burial: 1962, historical grave search; Grave data: Group 27, Row 4, Number 20; accessed on November 23, 2019.
  45. ↑ Grave site: Field II-C, row 06, grave 04 according to the grave document of Ilz cemetery from November 19, 2019, privately owned.
personal data
SURNAME Fischer, Maria
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fischer, Marie
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian silk winder and Trotskyist resistance fighter against Austrofascism and National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH July 30, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Polten
DATE OF DEATH February 6, 1962
Place of death Vienna