Anton Granig

Memorial plaque for Anton Granig at the parish church of Sagritz

Anton Granig (born September 17, 1901 in Mitten im Mölltal , Großkirchheim , Carinthia; † April 15, 1945 in Stein an der Donau ) was an Austrian priest and resistance fighter against National Socialism.

Life

Born as the son of a farming family, he attended elementary school in Döllach in Mölltal. He first had to help out on the farm and was only able to start high school in Klagenfurt after the First World War in 1919 . After graduating from high school in Klagenfurt in 1928, he began studying theology at the Klagenfurt seminary . He was ordained a priest on June 29, 1932 and became a chaplain in Viktring and Spittal . In 1934 he took leave of absence to study in Graz and was local chaplain on the side. He earned his own degree through pastoral care. On June 24, 1936 , he received his doctorate with a thesis on Paul as a pastor at the University of Graz . In Carinthia he became secretary of the St. Josefs Brotherhood, which he took over after the death of Franz Zach in 1941. On Sundays and public holidays he worked as an early preacher at the parish church of St. Egyd, where he got to know the needs of the people in the war. At the Elisabethinen convent, he volunteered as an economic consultant. Because of his sociability he was well liked by the population. His work for the St. Josefsverein was hindered from the start by the restrictions imposed by the National Socialist regime on those who thought differently.

Freedom movement

The “ Antifascist Freedom Movement in Austria ” was a Catholic-conservative resistance group against the Nazi regime. The three key figures of the movement were the priest Anton Granig and the member of the state parliament Karl Krumpl , both from Carinthia, as well as Eduard Pumpernig . The elementary school director Franz Bernthaler von St. Peter im Holz, a functionary of the "Ostmärkische Sturmscharen", who was arrested and released by the National Socialists and gained a foothold in Catholic circles in Klagenfurt , soon belonged to this group . Bernthaler's daughter Gertrude told the committed Catholic youth about Granig, who had openly admitted his anti-Nazi stance towards her and indicated that something should be done about the situation . They met in the area of ​​the Elisabethine monastery where Granig lived. Gertrude established the contact between Granig and the later ÖVP Federal Councilor Eduard Pumpernig (born 1920 in Scheifling ), who came to Klagenfurt in autumn 1939 to train as an aviator and sought contact with the parishes there in July 1941. Granig immersed himself in the study of the ideological roots of National Socialism; he often met Pumpernig in his apartment, who ultimately became Granig's undoing. Gradually the name AFOe (“Antifascist Freedom Movement Austria”) arose for the group at Granig's suggestion. The group was constituted in late February 1942 / early March 1942 in Granig's apartment. The group's first appeal in February 1942 was: “Carinthians, our homeland is in need! Brown criminals have betrayed our homeland. Our sons bleed and fall on the front lines for brown crime. The brown traitors are at home in warm offices and exploit the people. Carinthians, let's do it! Out to the front with the brown bigwigs! Carinthia and our Austria must again be free from the Prussian yoke. Everyone agrees against the brown criminals! Long live Carinthia! "

An appeal “The chains have fallen” from early 1942 was to be published after the collapse of the system. Granig also explained to the friends that leading Nazis should be sent to forced labor in the east after the collapse . In March 1942, the group's plans took shape. The second call came from Granig, a socio-political call that justified the rejection of National Socialism with its abuse of people. Granig conceived the appeal of the "movement", which opposed the malignant outgrowth of Prussia with ideal Austrianism. The war was lost, Hitler's Germany would collapse soon, and action must be taken in this crisis situation. Pumpernig had the appeal printed in the Franciscan monastery in Vienna, which was distributed in Klagenfurt on the night before March 28, 1942, before the “Day of the Wehrmacht”. In July 1942, Granig asked Pumpernig, the Jewish doctor Dr. Bring Walter Porges to Switzerland illegally. This let the officer candidate Wunibald Lexer explore a way. However, the operation was not carried out because Porges did not feel threatened.

In the spring of 1943 another leaflet was copied in the Vienna Franciscan monastery and distributed in Klagenfurt. Another leaflet was to be given to the Nuncio in Berlin for Allied broadcasters. However, it was abandoned because the nuncio was friends with Nazi Bishop Wielcken, who could betray the action. At the end of April 1943 Pumpernig had a meeting with sergeant Arthur Trattler, whom he had met through Ortner, and with the pharmacist Romuald Gager and other members of the Wehrmacht , about a possible collaboration with the Slovenes . Trattler then wrote three pamphlets aimed at the Carinthians, Austrians and Slovenes. Pumpernig put it together in a pamphlet entitled “Austrians, Carinthians, Brothers and Sisters of the Subjugated Nations” and informed Granig of the plan, which provided him with 2,000 sheets of paper. Pumpernig had 2000 copies made in the Franciscan monastery in Vienna.

On May 3, 1943, Granig and Pumpernig agreed to hand over the new leaflet to the Swedish envoy in Vienna. Bishop Andreas Rohracher promised Krumpl to pay a sum of money to cover the costs. Krumpl received a district reprimand; Granig donated money to continue the campaign. On May 3, 1943, there was a meeting in which Granig, Wenzel Primosch and Krumpl's wife Paula took part. A possible assassination attempt on Gauleiter Rainer was also discussed. Granig also called on Pumpernig and Wenzel Primosch to carry out bomb attacks against railway bridges and the state police in Klagenfurt; As members of the Wehrmacht, it must be easy for them to obtain the explosive material necessary for this. Since Pumpernig repeatedly forged holiday tickets at the airport, the defense gradually became aware. Pumpernig was arrested by the Gestapo on June 3, 1943, and Granig was arrested in Klagenfurt on June 17 on the basis of an arrest warrant from the People's Court of April 26, 1944, and later transferred to Vienna.

Arrest and Assassination

On the morning of July 6, 1943, officials from the Secret State Police appeared and arrested the members of his circle. The other members of the “Antifascist Freedom Movement in Austria” were also imprisoned until the end of summer 1943. The trial of the 13 arrested AFÖ activists should have taken place on July 20, 1944. Since Count Stauffenberg carried out the assassination attempt on Hitler on that day , the hearing was postponed to August.

The indictment accused Steinwender of having provided Eduard Pumpernig with a typewriter and copier for the production of leaflets. Granig was treated in a disparaging tone during the trial. The presiding judge Albrecht remarked: “Granig makes the worst impression imaginable among the defendants. It was a long time before he settled down to tell the truth ”. When Granig interjected: "Please, Mr. President, I am standing on a block for 17 hours without a break ...", whereupon the judge interrupted him: "Be silent, you are not a priest, but the devil." (Roth , 1985, 102). The Gestapo report accused Peller of having given the AFÖ 150 Reichsmarks and two revolvers. He is also said to have written the text for a leaflet.

The main defendants Anton Granig, Wenzel Primosch, Karl Krumpl, Franz Bernthaler, the Franciscan Angelus Steinwender , the Franciscan Kapistran Peller , Ernst Ortner and Georg Kofler were sentenced to death by the People's Court in Vienna on August 11, 1944 . On the day the judgment was announced, the room in the Palace of Justice was filled to the last seat. The sight of the judge, public prosecutor and the representative of the party “was such that one became small”, says a contemporary witness. The arbitrarily imposed punishments were draconian: Angelus and Kapistran were sentenced to death along with the six other accused. The confreres of the condemned priests reacted in shock: "We were all horrified and couldn't believe it!"

The court ruling reads: “The defendants Pumpernig, Dr. Granig, Primosch, Ortner, Krumpl, Dr. Steinwender and Dr. In the years 1941-1943, especially in Carinthia, Peller set up an organization with Habsburg separatist goals or took part in these anti-state activities as accomplices. Pumpernig, Dr. Granig, Primosch, Ortner, Dr. Steinwender and Dr. Peller also produced or distributed calls against the state or otherwise made himself available for this work. ”The death sentence was justified by the fact that Granig 1. wanted to tear Carinthia and Austria away from the Reich, 2. with the leaflet propaganda and 3. for inciting arson political reasons. Three priests were sentenced to death as a deterrent, the soldier Eduard Pumpernig was sentenced to 10 years in prison because he had made a significant contribution to the investigation.

Two days after the verdict, Granig asked his brother to inform the church authorities and obtain a pardon . On August 29, 1944, the retired Prince-Bishop Adam Hefter and Bishop Andreas Rohracher submitted a petition for clemency to the People's Court, but it was rejected. Granig's brother Josef described the air base soldier as a “fateful driving factor” in his pardon of September 12, 1944; his brother “only got knowledge of some things afterwards”. Bishop Rohracher spoke to the Gauleiter Friedrich Rainer on January 23, 1945 about the case and noted: “I asked the Gauleiter again for the Carinthian Drs who were sentenced to death on August 11, 1944. Granig and the like to intervene. The Gauleiter announced that he was working for Dr. Granig actually intervened. He had recently been informed from Berlin that the case in question was particularly difficult and that a pardon was therefore hardly an option. He again spoke out in particular for Karl Krumpl, whose mother had already lost 2 sons in this war and the death row inmates had not yet been judged as a result of this last intervention. ”This sealed the death sentences. The Gestapo found out that Bishop Rohracher was informed about Granig's efforts and had even donated money for them.

During the interrogation, Georg Lexer tried to tone down Pumpernig's statements about the nocturnal smear campaign. Granig and Steinwender waited in the cell for death. Krumpl, Primosch and Ortner were executed in Vienna on March 22, 1945; Three weeks before the collapse of the Nazi regime on April 5, 1945, Granig, Bernthaler, Kofler and another 43 prisoners - five of the eight defendants among them - were chained together and marched to Stein an der Donau . Pumpernig was part of the “escort team” who had to push the supervisors' carts. Since the Red Army had already reached the right bank of the Danube in places, the train turned north in the direction of Stockerau . In Großweikersdorf they were quartered in a guest house, in Maissau in the stables of the old castle. The parish chronicle of Eggendorf am Walde mentions that Granig was chained to P. Steinwender. The train reached Stein on April 9th. The prisoners were still hoping for a pardon. On April 15, 1945, 44 prisoners - including three priests - were shot in the courtyard of the Stein prison when the Red Army was already occupying St. Pölten . The execution of the death sentence was an arbitrary act, as the executions were not officially authorized.

In Klagenfurt-Welzenegg there is a street named after Anton Granig.

literature

• Herlinde Roth: Contributions to the resistance against the Nazi regime in Carinthia 1938–1945 , phil. Diss., Vienna 1985, pp. 99-110.
• Maximilian Liebmann: The anti-fascist freedom movement in Austria , in: Geschichte u. Present 4, 1985, pp. 255-281,
• Michaela Kronthaler: Dr. Anton Granig - co-founder of the 'Antifascist Freedom Movement in Austria' , in: Bedrehte Kirche. Pressed - persecuted - liberated, ed. v. M. Liebmann u. M. Kronthaler, (= Graz contributions to the history of theology and church contemporary history 9), Graz 1995, pp. 32–37.
• Church in the Gau. Documents on the situation of the Catholic Church in Carinthia from 1938 to 1945 , ed. v. Peter Tropper, Klagenfurt 1995, 226.
• Maximilian Liebmann: Plans and actions of the “Antifascist Freedom Movement in Austria” as well as those of individual supporters. In: Church in Society u. Politics, ed. v. M. Kronthaler, R. Zinnhobler u. DA Binder, Graz 1999, pp. 338-357.
• Peter Tropper: Anton Granig. In: Martyrs of the Faith. Martyrology of the 20th Century, Vol. 3: Feldkirch, Innsbruck, Gurk, Salzburg, Vienna 2000, pp. 143–148.
• Wilhelm Baum :  Granig, Anton. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 32, Bautz, Nordhausen 2011, ISBN 978-3-88309-615-5 , Sp. 536-543.
• Wilhelm Baum: Anton Granig. In: The Book of Names. The victims of National Socialism in Carinthia , Kitab, Klagenfurt 2010, pp. 300–312, ISBN 978-3-902585-53-0 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Radomír Luža : The Resistance in Austria 1938-1945 . Österreichischer Bundesverlag, Vienna 1985, ISBN 978-3-215-05477-8 , pp. 88 .