Rudolf Gomperz

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Image archive JMH Hohenems
Rudolf Gomperz

Rudolf Emanuel Karl Gomperz (born March 10, 1878 in Vienna ; † May 26, 1942 in the Maly Trostinez concentration camp , Belarus ) was a civil engineer and tourism pioneer from St. Anton am Arlberg .

family

The offspring of an assimilated Jewish merchant and scholarly family was the son of Theodor Gomperz and Elise Sichrovsky (1848–1929).

His father was the brother of Josephine Gomperz, married Josephine von Wertheimstein (1820–1894), the industrialist Max von Gomperz (1822–1913) and Julius von Gomperz (1823–1909) and Sophie Gomperz, married Sophie von Todesco (1825– 1895).

From his first marriage (1907–1925) with Clara Susanne Westphal, the daughter of Thordis Liselotte Ulla Gomperz emerged. From his second marriage (1925–1942) to Maria Theresia Anna (Marianne) Stecher, two sons were born.

Life

Rudolf Gomperz studied railway engineering at the Technical University of Berlin with Adolf Goering and Wilhelm Cauer and listened national economic talks at Gustav von Schmoller . He was involved as an engineer in the construction of the Baghdad Railway . Due to malaria , he settled in St. Anton in 1905 . In Tyrol, too, he continued to devote himself to the subject of rail and rail traffic, as a study he wrote on the railway line from Landeck to Mals ( Reschenscheideckbahn ) shows.

Rudolf Gomperz with Hannes Schneider

On the Arlberg he made a name for himself as a pioneer and trailblazer for ski tourism in St. Anton and held many offices and honorary posts. Together with the hotelier Carl Schuler , he was an early sponsor of Hannes Schneider . As a journalist and organizer, he supported Hannes Schneider's rise for more than 30 years, with whom he developed the Arlberg technology together and in 1926 launched the German Arlberg Courses Tailors ( DAKS courses for short ). These organized weekly ski courses (with accommodation and meals) brought St. Anton's first large flow of tourists. For the growing number of tourists, the first ski guide for the Arlberg area and the Ferwall Group , which was probably written by Rudolf Gomperz, was published in 1927 and became the template for many other ski guides.

He was a pioneer and visionary of the Galzigbahn , for which he campaigned with great personal commitment from 1931. For this he gave up his many years of activity as a secretary at the Arlberg Ski Club and the management of the St. Anton tourist office. However, he soon realized that as a Jew after the seizure of power in 1933 and as an advocate for the construction of the Galzigbahn, he could no longer exert any great influence. In the same year he had to leave the German Ski Association . The project was then taken over by the State Secretary Guido Schmidt , thanks to whose contacts the construction of the railway could be realized in 1937.

After the annexation of Austria in 1938, Rudolf Gomperz was subjected to constant harassment by the authorities in St. Anton and Landeck. He was German-national and could not imagine that the Nazi regime could harm him as a baptized Protestant. However, he was u. a. the arrest (protective custody) of his companion and friend Hannes Schneider made it clear where the journey was going. In contrast to Hannes Schneider, who was forced to emigrate to America, Rudolf Gomperz stayed in St. Anton. However, he was still registered in the parish register as a Jew, which he u. a. also became doomed by constant denunciation. For this reason he was officially ordered to wear the Jewish star and had to leave St. Anton on January 20, 1942, to go to a reception camp in Vienna. From there he was deported to Belarus to the Maly Trostinez extermination camp on May 20, 1942 , and shot there on May 26, 1942.

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year Activities & events
1905 Taking up residence in St. Anton
1906 Chairman & Honorary Chairman of the Ski Club Arlberg (SCA)
1910 Chairman and honorary member of the Austrian Ski Association (OeSV)
1915 to 1919 Head of the ski workshop of the Austrian and German armies
1923 Retires as secretary at the OeSV (Aryan paragraph)
1924 Change of the SCA from the OeSV to the Allgäuer Skiverband (ASV / DSV)
1926 Organization of the German championship in St. Anton
1927 Organization of the 1st Arlberg-Kandahar race in St. Anton with Hannes Schneider
1927 to 1931 Head of the St. Anton Tourist Office
1933 Compulsory exclusion of Rudolf Gomperz from the DSV (Aryan paragraph)
1934 SCA leaves the ASV and thus DSV
1934 Active for the St. Anton Tourist Office
1937 Inauguration of the Galzigbahn
01/10/1942 Forced relocation to Vienna
05/20/1942 Deportation from Vienna to Belarus
05/26/1942 Shooting in the Maly Trostenec camp
1995 Inauguration of the Gomperz monument at the local museum in St. Anton
2015 Find of the silver locomotive by Rudolf Gomperz / Heinrich Sichrovsky
2016 Handover of the find to the Israelite Community for Tyrol and Vorarlberg

The silver locomotive

In 1845 Heinrich Joachim von Sichrovsky, General Secretary of the Kaiser Ferdinand Nordbahn , received a silver model of a locomotive from his employees as a birthday present. Since 1942, after Rudolf Gomperz was deported to Belarus and murdered, the silver locomotive that Rudolf Gomperz inherited from his grandfather Heinrich Sichrovsky had been lost for almost 78 years. Since then, her whereabouts have been puzzled in both St. Anton and Vienna.

Image archive JMH Hohenems
Silver locomotive

It was Hans Thöni who enlightened St. Anton in 1976 about the repressed story of Rudolf Gomperz, the pioneer of modern ski tourism, and inspired Felix Mitterer to write his drama No beautiful country . It was also Hans Thöni who received this model in 2015 from the descendants of the man to whom Rudolf Gomperz is said to have given this silver locomotive "for safekeeping" in 1941 and where it remained for 73 years after his deportation. A short film by Sina Moser with the title The Silver Locomotive was also made for this purpose .

The locomotive was 2016, the Jewish Community for Tyrol and Vorarlberg "returned," she said Jewish Museum Hohenems has left on loan to which the locomotive in the exhibition What remains was first presented in 2016 in Hohenems a wider audience. In 2018/19 the locomotive was also shown in the exhibition Traces: Exhibition on ski culture on the Arlberg in the Lech Museum Huber Huus.

Works

  • The train from Landeck to Mals. Landeck 1912, (digitized version)
  • Hannes Schneider, Rudolf Gomperz: Ski guide for the Arlberg area and the Verwall group. Rother Verlag, Munich 1926.
  • The Arlberg - the university of alpine skiing. In: Bergland. Illustrated monthly Alpine magazine. Volume 16, No. 11, Nov. 1934, p. 17.
  • Hannes Schneider: On skis in Japan. written by Rudolf Gomperz. 1935.

literature

  • Hans Thöni: tourism pioneer on the Arlberg. The fate of Rudolf Gomperz. In: Thomas Albrich (Ed.): We lived like them. Jewish life stories from Tyrol and Vorarlberg . Innsbruck 1999, pp. 123-146.
  • Hans Thöni: The fate of Rudolf Gomperz. In: Felix Mitterer: Not a beautiful country. Haymon, Innsbruck 1987, ISBN 3-85218-029-5 .
  • Hanno Loewy: The wonder of the snowshoe ?: Hannes Schneider, Rudolf Gomperz and the birth of modern skiing on the Arlberg . In: Hanno Loewy, Gerhard Milchram (ed.): Have you seen my Alps ?: A Jewish relationship story . 2009, ISBN 978-3-902679-41-3 , pp. 318–343 ( vol.at [PDF; accessed March 24, 2019]).
  • Jewish Museum Hohenems: Ing.Rudolf Emanuel Karl Gomperz . Hohenems Genealogy, March 23, 2019, accessed March 23, 2019
  • Jewish Museum Hohenems: Hans Sichrovsky, Genealogy Hohemems. In: Genealogy Jewish Museum Hohemems. Jewish Museum Hohemems, March 23, 2019, accessed on March 23, 2019.
  • Harry Sichrovsky: My ancestor - The pioneer: Heinrich Sichrovsky and his time. 1st edition. new academic press, 1988, ISBN 3-7003-0787-X , p. 232.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Harry Sichrovsky: My Urahn - The pioneer: Heinrich Sichrovsky and his time. 1st edition. New academic press, 1988, ISBN 3-7003-0787-X , pp. 232 .
  2. ↑ a b c Ing.Rudolf Emanuel Karl Gomperz. Jewish Museum Hohenems, 2017, accessed on March 24, 2019 .
  3. ↑ a b c The wonder of the snowshoe ?: Hannes Schneider, Rudolf Gomperz and the birth of modern skiing on the Arlberg . In: Hanno Loewy, Gerhard Milchram (ed.): Have you seen my Alps ?: A Jewish relationship story . 2009, ISBN 978-3-902679-41-3 ( vol.at [PDF; accessed on March 24, 2019]).
  4. ^ A b Rudolf Gomperz: The train from Landeck to Mals (Vinschgaubahn) . Landeck 1912, urn : nbn: at: at-ubi: 2-2481 .
  5. ^ Arnold Fanck, Hannes Schneider: Miracle of the snowshoe . 2 volumes, no. 1 . Gbr. Enoch Verlag, Hamburg 1925.
  6. ↑ Hannes Schneider: High school of skiing . Ed .: Armin Pfeifer. Alpensportverlag, Innsbruck / Vienna / Munich 1934, p. 94 .
  7. ↑ Hans Thöni: Hannes Schneider, a ski pioneer. In: http://www.walser-alps.eu/kultur-1/persoenitäten . Hans Thöni, 1990, accessed March 25, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Jutta Berger: Late memory of ski pioneer Schneider. In: The Standard . December 21, 2012, accessed March 24, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Hannes Schneider, Rudolf Gomperz: Ski guide for the Arlberg area and the Ferwall group . 4th edition. Rother Berg Verlag, Munich 1926.
  10. ↑ a b c d Hans Thöni: No beautiful country on the Arlberg . 1st edition. tape 1 . Association for the Arlberg Culture Days, 2002, ISBN 3-9501280-1-8 , p. 30 .
  11. ↑ Nicholas Howe: The Quest for Hannes Schneider, pp. 20 ff. In: Skiing Heritage Journal. September 2004, accessed on March 23, 2019 .
  12. ^ Hans Thöni: Tourism pioneer on the Arlberg. The fate of Rudolf Gomperz . In: Thomas Albrich (Ed.): We lived like them. Jewish life stories from Tyrol and Vorarlberg . 1st edition. Innsbruck 1999, ISBN 3-85218-292-1 , p. 128 .
  13. ^ VGA: Jewish sports officials. In: http://juedische-sportfunktionaere.vga.at/ . VGA, accessed March 25, 2019 .
  14. ↑ a b The silver locomotive. Jewish Museum Hohenems, May 31, 2016, accessed on March 24, 2019 ( conversation between Hanno Loewy, Hans Thöni and Rudolf Hausherr on YouTube ).
  15. ↑ Sina Moser: The silver locomotive. In: Studio West. Independent film. Youtube, 2014, accessed March 23, 2019 .
  16. ↑ Traces: The exhibition on ski culture. Lechmuseum, accessed on March 24, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Gomperz, Rudolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gomperz, Rudolf Emanuel Karl (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian civil engineer and tourism pioneer
DATE OF BIRTH March 10, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH May 26, 1942
Place of death Maly Trostinez concentration camp