Alfred Gerstl

Alfred Gerstl (born July 3, 1923 in Graz , Styria , † November 15, 2016 there ) was an Austrian politician and sports official .

biography

Early life

Alfred Gerstl was born the third of four children to Alfred and Maria Gerstl. His father was Jewish, his mother a Catholic who had converted to Judaism . Since his father applied for a job with the Austrian Federal Railways , he had to convert to Catholicism in 1924 in times of emerging anti-Semitism ; his wife followed him and also converted back. Even though Alfred Gerstl junior was also baptized, the family remained true to their Jewish roots, as his father taught the children about Kabbalah and also dealt with Hasidism .

In March 1938, after the National Socialists came to power, Gerstl first had to leave music school and, as a “half-Jew”, give up his apprenticeship as a gunsmith . Although "Aryan" companies were forbidden to employ Jews, Gerstl still received an apprenticeship as a toolmaker at the armaments company Pengg-Walenta . Between 1939 and 1941 he was even a student in a vocational school. In 1942 he was accidentally drafted into the Wehrmacht , and a year later his superiors recognized the mistake. Immediately before he should have been deported from Vienna to the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1943, he managed to escape with the help of an Austrian officer.

In the next two years of the war, Gerstl joined a resistance group in Graz, which his later first wife also belonged to. As a courier he was responsible for the transport of food and information to Slovenia to the People's Liberation Army there. He also smuggled deserted Wehrmacht soldiers and former forced laborers into Slovenia.

post war period

After the war, Gerstl kept afloat with various odd jobs, initially as a laborer, later a property manager and finally from 1945 to 1948 a singer in Graz inns. After running a grocery store from 1948 to 1954, he opened a tobacco shop in 1954 , which he ran until his retirement in 1992; In 1968 he founded his own trading agency.

Gerstl became a member of the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) and was elected to the district party leadership of the Jakomini district of Graz in 1970 . In 1973 he was elected to the Graz municipal council, of which he was a member until 1987. In the same year he was sworn in as a member of the Federal Council in Vienna, of which he was a member for 13 years until 2000. Both in 1994 and 1998, Gerstl was President of the Second Austrian Chamber of Parliament.

Alfred Gerstl also tried to promote sport in Austria, especially weight training. He made both bodybuilding and karate very popular in Austria in the 1960s and 1970s. Through his son Karl, Gerstl met a young and largely unknown bodybuilder named Arnold Schwarzenegger . Alfred Gerstl, in whose cellar Arnold was allowed to train, is considered to be the mentor of the later actor and politician Schwarzenegger, since Gerstl helped finance his trips to England and the USA from 1966 in order to win the title of Mr. Universum . In return, Schwarzenegger, knowing about Alfred Gerstl's Jewish roots, still sponsors the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles today .

Awards

• 1994: Great Golden Decoration with the Star for Services to the Republic of Austria
• Gold medal for services to the Republic of Austria
• Silver medal for services to the Republic of Austria
• Decoration of honor for services to the liberation of Austria
• Great gold medal of the state of Styria
• 1993 appointment as citizen of the city of Graz

Web links

• Alfred Gerstl on the website of the Austrian Parliament

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Schwarzenegger mentor Gerstl has died . ORF Steiermark , published on November 15, 2016, accessed on November 15, 2016.
2. ↑ Query response: parliamentary query regarding medals and decorations to former domestic and foreign government members and other personalities . Federal Chancellery , April 23, 2012, accessed on November 15, 2016 (covers the years 1952–2012, pdf, 6.9 MB).
3. ↑ Alfred Gerstl Federal aD ( Memento of 4 March 2016 Internet Archive ) City Website of the City of Graz, accessed on 15 November 2016th

predecessor	Office	successor
Ludwig Bieringer	President of the Austrian Federal Council January 1, 1994 - June 30, 1994	Gottfried Jaud

predecessor	Office	successor
Ludwig Bieringer	President of the Austrian Federal Council July 1, 1998 - December 31, 1998	Gottfried Jaud