Anton trap

Antonfall ( March 25, 1886 in Rajach , Carinthia - January 15, 1945 in the Dachau concentration camp ) was an Austrian politician of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria (SDAP) and a resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

Antonfallen was only able to attend elementary school for two years , he spent his youth as a farmhand before he found employment as a young worker building the Karawankenbahn . Here the young Anton Fall joined the ranks of the Social Democrats early on. But he kept losing his job because, like most leading activists, he was blacklisted by entrepreneurs. He then worked as a magazine worker at Brown, Boveri & Cie. , as a baker's assistant, as a temporary worker and as a nurse in psychiatry. All of these activities were repeatedly interrupted by lengthy periods of unemployment.

It was not until 1918 that Fall found a permanent job as District Party Secretary of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria in Villach. At the side of the later governor of Carinthia, Florian Gröger , Fall was committed to Carinthia's concerns. After participating in the First World War, Fall was editor of the newspaper Arbeiterwille for many years . The Yugoslav troops under General Rudolf Maister had taken large parts of Carinthia for the SHS state in 1919 , and it was not until the referendum on October 10, 1920 it was clarified that Carinthia would remain undivided with the Republic of Austria. A little later, on July 7, 1921, Fall entered the Austrian National Council . He was a member of this until its dissolution on February 17, 1934. After the death of Florian Gröger in May 1927, Fall became regional party chairman of SDAP Carinthia. In both functions, Fall went public with commitment and effectiveness. His plenary contributions to the National Council testify to the hard opposition work, thorough rhetorical preparation and the politician's organizational talent. It is also due to his commitment that the social democracy in Carinthia had its own print medium from 1927 onwards, which as a confidante, the so-called "little Otto Bauer", Josef Polipnig , edited and published on behalf of SDAP Carinthia.

After February 12, 1934, as a revolutionary socialist , Antonfall tried to organize resistance against the Austro- fascist system government. He was arrested, tried and sentenced in 1935 to one year in heavy prison. Fall's health suffered severely during this time. He wrote to his wife from the Villach district prison in May 1935 that he had “yesterday (...) rolled around on the straw sack for many hours until the insane inner tension with its nerve pain was relieved by a sweat. It's bad that I couldn't put on my clothes after sweating. "

Antonfall, who, as a political agitator, had warned of the National Socialist danger for many years, experienced Austria's annexation to the German Reich in 1938 . Although he refrained from any political or visible opposition activity, he was charged with numerous other Carinthian 1944 in the wake of the Gestapo - Action Grid detained again in August and in the Dachau concentration camp admitted. The Gestapo had been watching Antonfallen for a long time and had established his unbroken influence on social democratic partisans, which he was able to exercise in a small circle despite all his seclusion. His message was as follows: “We are mentally gagged, dejected, we cannot talk, we cannot write as we would like, we are not allowed to gather, are surrounded by spies and informers, but still, we want to do one thing and that is : Stay true to our convictions. Stay true to our idea, stay true to our good workers, stay true to our democracy and stay true to socialism! "

His fellow prisoner, Hans Lagger, described the conditions to which they were exposed after the liberation: “… Hunger edema occurred in many cases, the complexion turned pale and paler, the teeth began to wobble, the eye sockets got dark circles, the prisoners sat around weak and bent on stones and chairs, closer and closer to the stove or the sun, until they became unwillingly the prey of an ever-ruling epidemic ... "In his last letter, which he addressed to his son of the same name, he wrote:" Help one the other. From the bottom of my heart I wish and hope that you, Peppi, Mama and Frieda will come out of the war unharmed and overcome life's difficulties together. God protect and keep you and our holy Carinthian homeland. (...) Let's hope that it will be the last year of the war. Best regards from your father. ”On January 15, 1945, Antonfall died in the Dachau concentration camp. The camp management informed the family that he had died as a result of emphysema pulmonum (emphysema).

Commemoration

An application submitted by the KPÖ Villach in 1949 to the local council for a memorial plaque for the victims of fascism , on which Antonfallen should also be mentioned, was rejected. On July 4, 2014, the German artist Gunter Demnig laid two stumbling blocks on Harbacher Straße in Klagenfurt in memory of Antonfallen, one in Slovene and one in German.

literature

• Wilhelm Baum, Peter Gstettner , Hans Haider, Vinzenz Jobst, Peter Pirker as editors: The book of names. Kitab-Verlag, Klagenfurt 2010, ISBN 978-3-902585-53-0 .
• Hans Lagger: The Truth About Dachau. Klagenfurt 1946
• Karl Dinklage: History of the Carinthian Workers. Vol. II, Klagenfurt 1982

See also

• List of stumbling blocks in Carinthia

Web links

• Anton Fall on the website of the Austrian Parliament
• Antonfall - short biography with photo