Austrian freedom movement

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Austrian Freedom Movement is the name of two Catholic-conservative resistance groups against National Socialism in Austria that sought unification in 1940.

The Austrian Freedom Movement by Roman Karl Scholz

In the autumn of 1938, the Augustinian canon Roman Karl Scholz founded a resistance group together with his friend Viktor Reimann . The group, initially called the German Freedom Movement , was largely made up of Scholz's pupils and students. From autumn 1939 onwards it called itself the Austrian freedom movement . On an earlier trip to England , Scholz had made political connections there. After the " Anschluss of Austria " , he sent regular reports to these contacts on the situation in Austria and the activities of the resistance, which he had his colleague Rüdiger Engerth translated into English.

The networking of his resistance group spread from Vienna to Lower Austria , Upper Austria and Tyrol . An “executive committee” was formed, which, in addition to Scholz and Reimann, included Hanns Georg Heintschel-Heinegg , Gerhard Fischer-Ledenice , Hans Zimmerl and Luise Kanitz as the leader of the women's group. In 1939, the Gestapo spy Otto Hartmann joined them. While Hartmann advocated terrorist attacks and assassinations, which apart from him only Zimmerl advocated, the majority pursued a more cautious strategy: They wanted to create many small groups of 30 men each (so-called "ranks"), which in turn were to be divided into subgroups of three. This should create a wide network across Austria.

The size of the whole movement is estimated at around 100–400 people. The "training courses" for the leaders of the rows were held in the apartment of Heintschel-Heineggs parents on Vienna's Prinz-Eugen-Straße.

The spy Kurt Koppel also took part in various meetings of the group around Scholz in 1939, he was supposed to monitor the group's connections to British and French embassies in Slovakia and Hungary and, if possible, to investigate the content of this communication.

In the spring of 1940 Zimmerl led a particularly active action group that produced and distributed leaflets.

In April 1940, a courier, the student Rudolf Strasser, was able to establish contact with the French embassy in Budapest and with Soviet and American representatives in Pressburg . Since the spy Koppel was employed in a Bratislava branch of a publishing house, he offered Scholz to help with the transmission of the news. Since Scholz agreed to this, the Gestapo had access to this exchange of information ever since.

The Austrian freedom movement by Karl Lederer

The lawyer Karl Lederer , who was dismissed from the Vienna Financial Procuratorate for " racial reasons ", wanted to fight for this goal as a fanatical supporter of an independent Austria. As early as the summer of 1938 he gathered a group of people who had had a similar experience or who were disadvantaged under the National Socialists because of their functions in the corporate state . Together with his colleagues Alfred Miegl and Rudolf Wallner , he founded a resistance group, which, independently of Scholz, he also called the Austrian Freedom Movement . His group regularly published a typewritten and then peeled-off leaflet entitled “What is not in the VB .” It published critical news about the corruption of the National Socialists and the progress of the war. This group concentrated mainly on the Vienna area and comprised around 200–300 people. It was divided into various specific groups (armed forces, women, young people, etc.).

The common movement and betrayal

In the years 1939 and 1940 there were first contacts between the two groups of the same name. In addition, the third cooperating group was the Greater Austrian Freedom Movement by Jacob Kastelic . In April 1940 the three groups decided to coordinate their organizations. For security reasons, a central office was not set up. However, at this point in time, Gestapo confederates had already been infiltrated into all three groups. The total number of members of these groups is estimated at around 1000 people.

Memorial plaque to Hans Zimmerl, in Vienna, Inner City, Neutorgasse 2

A few months after they had agreed on a common approach, after betrayal by Hartmann on 22./23. July 1940 the leading functionaries of the three groups arrested at the same time. A total of 143 resistance fighters were arrested in late July and early August, and around 320 other suspects were questioned. Many of them are said not to have been arrested because there was no free space in the prisons. Another wave of arrests followed in the winter of 1940/41. 127 people were charged, including 94 men and 33 women. The three leaders of the resistance movements Scholz, Kastelic and Lederer were sentenced to death with their closest colleagues in March 1944. The executions took place on May 10 (Lederer, Scholz, Zimmerl, Miegl and Wallner) and August 2, 1944 (Fischer-Ledenice, Heintschel-Heinegg, Kastelic and Loch). Two others sentenced to death were pardoned and their sentences changed to life imprisonment. Nine people sentenced to prison died in custody.

literature

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b c Fritz Molden : The fire in the night . Amalthea, Vienna / Munich 1988, ISBN 3-85002-262-5 , p. 20-22 .
  2. ↑ Fritz Molden: The fire in the night . Amalthea, Vienna / Munich 1988, ISBN 3-85002-262-5 , p. 88-90 .
  3. ↑ a b Fritz Molden: The fire in the night . Amalthea, Vienna / Munich 1988, ISBN 3-85002-262-5 , p. 91-93 .