Austrian Freedom Front (Moosbierbaum)

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The Austrian Freedom Front was a resistance group against National Socialism that formed in 1944 in the Moosbierbaum plant and the surrounding area.

prehistory

The Moosbierbaum plant was founded as an armaments factory during World War I and was converted to civilian production in 1918. After German oil refineries were damaged by air raids during the Second World War , the plant was expanded to produce aviation fuel and it was switched back to arms production. This was accompanied by an increase in the pressure to perform on the employees, which led to initial dissatisfaction as early as 1940. There were also wage disputes and rivalries between Austrians and Germans. The factory were forced laborers used and from 1943 also political and criminal prisoners from the penitentiary stone . Among the political prisoners were those who had been convicted of acts of resistance (distribution of leaflets, donations for the Red Aid, etc.) and who therefore had certain experience with organized activities in illegality.

Genesis and betrayal

A leading figure in the formation of the resistance group was Leopold Kuhn, who as a KPÖ functionary was a political prisoner in Stein and was transferred to the Moosbierbaum branch in October 1943 together with 105 other prisoners. In discussions with the judicial officers employed there, he found out that they and the civilian guards had little sympathy for the Nazi regime. This made it possible for the inmates to deliver illegal letters and even get outside visitors. The inmates agreed to sabotage the work , for example by marching to work as slowly as possible or by only half filling disc chests . In the summer of 1944, the conspiratorial prisoners also made contact with other workers, with a neighboring military prison camp and with farmers in the vicinity. At this time the group also took the name "Austrian Freedom Front" (ÖFF).

Between summer and late autumn 1944, the group denounced abuses in the company with leaflets and demanded that they be stopped. From November 1944 onwards, political objectives were set, the elimination of Nazi rule and the establishment of a democratic Austria were sought.

The Gestapo had learned of the emergence of organized resistance in the plant and smuggled in confederates among the workers. Leopold Odrada, convicted of communist activities in 1940, was "transferred back" to the Gestapo in autumn 1943 and blackmailed into spying on the group under threat of being assigned to a concentration camp . He managed to win the trust of the leading officials and he eventually belonged to the management cadre. Other informers also informed the Gestapo about what was going on in the plant.

In autumn 1944, the ÖFF used the now numerous air raids on the plant to establish contact with the local population in the wine cellars used as air raid shelter . Individual members of the groups also used the attacks to flee. One of them, Walter Erhart, changed sides after his escape on November 6, 1944 and reported a few days later to a police station, where he revealed details about the ÖFF. In this way the Gestapo learned of the high level of organization of the resistance movement, which it had previously considered to be smaller and more fragmented. Odrada, for example, had not reported everything to the Gestapo and in November 1944 revealed to Kuhn that he was obliged by the Gestapo. Through Ehart's betrayal, the Gestapo also recognized Odrada's double play. Ehart was by the Gestapo as an undercover agent was added and now used against Odrada. He was able to quarter at Odrada and get a list of ÖFF liaison officers from him. In December 1944 he forwarded this list to the Gestapo. Odrada was summoned to the Gestapo headquarters in Vienna on December 6, 1944 , where he was severely mistreated, and then transferred to St. Pölten , where he was imprisoned. His wife and two Soviet officers who had fled , whom he was hiding, were also arrested.

Ehart subsequently recruited other citizens of the area for the resistance group, which he also betrayed to the Gestapo. On January 16, 1945, many members of the ÖFF were arrested in a large-scale operation by the Gestapo with the support of other police forces and members of the Air Force: In total, around 300 actual or suspected ÖFF members were arrested in Moosbierbaum and in the surrounding areas of the Tulln and Krems districts . A spy who was arrested to protect the certificate was then transferred from cell to cell in the police prison (or later in the regional court prison) in St. Pölten in order to obtain further information from the prisoners.

237 people were supposed to be reported to the People's Court after the end of the interrogations , but as the front line moved closer, many prisoners - mainly farmers - were released. 130 prisoners were to be brought to the Mauthausen concentration camp to await their trial. These did not take place, but an unknown number of resistance fighters were shot in the area around St. Pölten, and the SS murdered 47 more on April 27, 1945 in Mauthausen concentration camp.

Walter Erhart was able to go into hiding after the end of the war and was only arrested in September 1955 because of §7 KVG . However, the criminal case was set in May 1957 and Erhart released from custody.

Relatives

The group's leading functionaries included prisoners Leopold Kuhn, Johann Brunner, Paul Palkowitsch, Rudolf Häusl, Martin Weiss and Karl Wallner, as well as company employees Leopold Brunnder, Leopold Odrada, Johann Marik and Franz Stadler.

souvenir

Memorial stone on the cemetery in Zwentendorf
  • In 1946, a memorial “In honor of the victims of fascism” was unveiled on the Moosbierbaumer factory premises. It was removed in the course of the construction of the Dürnrohr coal-fired power station .
  • In 1984, at the request of the KPÖ, the town council of Zwentendorf decided to commission a new memorial stone to be erected on the war cemetery of the First World War.

literature

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Hans Schafranek: Resistance and betrayal. Gestapo spies in the anti-fascist underground 1938–1945 . Czernin, Vienna 2017, ISBN 978-3-7076-0622-5 , p. 397 .
  2. ↑ Heinz Arnberger, Claudia Kuretsidis-Haider (ed.): Commemoration and dunning in Lower Austria. Reminder signs of resistance, persecution, exile and liberation . Mandelbaum, Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-85476-367-3 , p. 492 ff . ( Section online on the DÖW website (PDF; 2.88 MB)).