Anton Steininger

Anton Steininger (born June 27, 1898 in Deutschlandsberg , † October 28, 1968 in Graz ) was an Austrian writer who also published under the pseudonym Walther Sturm . The focus of his publications is on the representation of the political situation in Austria from the National Socialist point of view .

Life

After four years of teaching at a commercial academy , Steiniger was drafted in 1916 during the First World War. At the end of the war, he retired from active military service as a reserve officer. From 1919 he worked as a trainee for the Leykam bookstore, later for the wood industry in Deutschlandsberg and at the Leykam paper factory. From 1924 to 1938 he headed the address book department of Kienreich's advertising company in Graz. After the "Anschluss" of Austria , a Berlin stock corporation took over the company and Steininger was appointed local managing director.

Steininger was a member of the NSDAP from 1932 to 1938 and from 1940 (membership number 895569). He was involved in the National Socialist Company Cell Organization (NSBO) of the trade department (subdivision in the book trade group of the Reichsschrifttumskammer ), for which he initially acted as cell leader from 1933 and as a student council administrator in 1937/1938. In 1938 he took over the construction of the German Labor Front (DAF) in the trade department.

In his utopian debut novel Weltbrand 1950 , published in 1932, Steininger combined racial war motifs with the idea of ​​a global war between the communist world and the rest of the world.

In 1933 he published under a pseudonym the novel Austria under the rubber stick , which was banned in the corporate state , but was popular with the National Socialists.

In 1938/1939, Leopold Stocker Verlag published Steininger's Ostmarktrilogie ("Ostmark" was the name for Austria from 1939 to 1942), in which he uses examples to illustrate the fate of Austrian National Socialists from 1933 to the "Anschluss". It consists of the individual volumes Not dead despite prohibition , Aufbruch ins Reich and Rebels für Deutschland . From 1940 the trilogy was conducted under the title We fought, we suffered, we won . In the following year it was included in Das Buch der Jugend , a directory of books recommended for German youth. These and other measures promoted the distribution of Steininger's works in National Socialist Germany.

In 1940 Steininger joined the Wehrmacht and in 1942 was a war correspondent with the rank of first lieutenant on the Eastern Front.

Steininger did not publish anything after the Second World War. His works were indexed in Germany, but did not get on the Austrian list of banned authors and books .

Steininger lived in Graz. Originally of Roman Catholic faith, he was later listed as a believer in God . He was married and had no children (as of 1939).

Works

• World fire 1950: a utopian novel. Verlag der Zeit-Romane, Graz 1932.
• Austria under the rubber truncheon: A little novel. Reissenweber, Gotha 1933.
• Bridges from people to people: Franco-German novel of understanding. Stocker, Graz 1938.
• East market trilogy. With pen drawings by Franz Köck .

  Not dead despite the ban: pictures from the illegal fight for Austria's German homeland. Stocker, Graz 1938.

  Rebels for Germany: Images from the illegal struggle for Austria's German freedom. Stocker, Graz 1939.

  Departure into the Reich: Austria's struggle for freedom, an experience. Stocker, Graz 1939.

• In the shadow of Kilimanjaro: a colonial novel. Burmester, Bremen 1941.

literature

• Hans Giebisch : Steininger, Anton. In: Small Austrian Literature Lexicon. (Austrian homeland, 8) Hollinek, Vienna 1948.
• Steininger, Anton. In: Handbook: Austrian Literature 1938–1945. Uwe Baur, Karin Gradwohl-Schlacher, Literature in Austria 1938–1945. Manual of a literary system. Volume 1: Styria. Böhlau, Vienna-Cologne-Weimar 2008, ISBN 978-3-205-77809-7 , pp. 329-330.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hans Frey : Departure into the Abyss: German Science Fiction Between Democracy and Dictatorship. Memoranda, Berlin 2020, ISBN 978-3-948616-02-1 .