Bruno Furch

Bruno Furch (born July 20, 1913 in Vienna ; † January 11, 2000 there ) was an Austrian teacher, fighter in Spain , resistance fighter and political journalist .

youth

Born in Vienna in 1913 as the son of a baker who was a member of the Republican Protection Association , Bruno Furch grew up shaped by the class struggles of the First Republic . Furch graduated from secondary school and in 1932 passed the examination for teaching at elementary schools. At a young age, Furch became a member of the Association of Socialist Middle School Students in Austria . The 12 February 1934 was the first turning point in his life: he took in the ranks of the Communist Youth League Austria's active anti-fascist resistance in part.

Resistance fighters

As a staunch opponent of National Socialism and the annexation of Austria by Hitler's Germany , he left the country in March 1938 and went to Spain to join the International Brigades to fight against fascism. The fall of the Spanish Republic meant for him and many other interbrigadists internment in French camps.

In April 1941, Furch was transported to the Dachau concentration camp on a transport . In 1944 Furch was transferred to the Flossenbürg concentration camp , where, according to him, he experienced the deepest stage of his human existence. On the prisoners' death march to Dachau in April 1945, he stepped away from his column and on May 1 faced the Americans advancing on Munich in Starnberg .

1949 Marries Friederike (Fritzi) Jaroslavsky. Fritzi was arrested by the Gestapo in Vienna in 1940 at the age of fifteen, together with her father, the communist resistance fighter Eduard Jaroslavsky. After twenty months in prison, she was taken to the Ravensbrück concentration camp . Eduard Jaroslavsky was murdered in Berlin-Plötzensee in 1941, she herself remained imprisoned until 1945. Bruno Furch lived most of his life and until his death at the side of his wife and companion in Vienna- Hietzing .

Political journalist

After the war, when he returned to liberated Austria , Bruno Furch worked as a journalist in the editorial team of Volksstimme . Bruno Furch worked in the party crisis from 1968 to 1970 together with Ernst Wimmer and others as an editor on the party organ Neue Politik . In 1970 he was elected to the Central Committee of the KPÖ and deputy editor-in-chief of Volksstimme.

Furch was able to count many well-known people from the international communist and labor movement among his political circle of friends. Luis Corvalan , Álvaro Cunhal , Fritz Jensen , Viktor Matejka , Eva Priester , Fritz Glaubauf , Hedy Urach , Bruno Dubber, Leopold Hornik and Curt Ponger. Furch spoke several languages. Among other things, Spanish and Portuguese. After the coup in 1973, Furch was deputy chairman of the Austrian Solidarity Front in Chile.

1976, in his retirement, Furch took over as successor to the former chief editor of the People's Voice Erwin sugar Shilling representation of the CPA in the editorial board of the international journal Problems of Peace and Socialism . This "Journal of the Communist and Workers' Parties for Theory and Information" was published in Prague. He also took over the editing of the German-language IB information bulletin of the communist and workers' parties, which was published by Globus Verlag in Vienna between 1958 and 1989.

His best-known book deals with the decline of the KPÖ after the collapse of the countries of real socialism and was published in 1995 under the title, The weak immune system .

farewell

On January 11, 2000, Bruno Furch died at the age of 87 in Vienna with his family. Bruno Furch was in accordance with a tradition of Viennese Communists cremated . His urn was buried at the Mauer cemetery (group 46A, number 188A).

Works

• Despite all violence, 35 stories about comrades, comrades and friends from eight decades. Self-published, Vienna 1993 ISBN 3-9500295-0-8
• The weak immune system. Historical-critical essay on the decline of the Communist Party of Austria and its main political causes. Self-published, Vienna 1995 ISBN 3-9500295-1-6