Association of the Politically Persecuted

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The Bund of Politically Persecuted Persons - Austrian Federal Association was an Austrian umbrella organization of the victims of the Nazi regime that existed from 1946 to 1948 .

After the liberation in 1945, the three political founding parties of the Second Republic founded victims' associations. These were brought together in 1946 in the umbrella organization Bund der Politically Persecuted. With the so-called Privilege Act in 1947, the Bund of Politically Persecuted People was even established as the sole and official representation of the interests of Nazi victims. It included, under the presidency of an ÖVP representative, Franz Sobek , representatives of the ÖVP , SPÖ and KPÖ, but also representatives of the then communist-oriented Israelite religious community . The socialist Karl Mark acted as general secretary .

However, the Bund of Politically Persecuted People was dissolved again on March 8, 1948 in the wake of the Communist seizure of power in Czechoslovakia and the outbreak of the Cold War, after the SPÖ under Adolf Schärf in particular claimed Communist Party dominance in the association and attacked Sobek personally would have. As a result, the victim's interests were represented in the ÖVP by the ÖVP comradeship of the politically persecuted , in the SPÖ by the Association of Socialist Freedom Fighters and Victims of Fascism, and in the KPÖ by the KZ-Verband (Association of Antifascist Austrian Concentration Camp Protection Inmates ). The latter tried, however, to give itself a bipartisan look.

literature

  • Brigitte Bailer-Galanda : The Origin of Restitution and Compensation Legislation. The Republic of Austria and the assets seized during the Nazi era . Oldenbourg Verlag, Vienna et al. 2003, ISBN 3-486-56690-3 ( publications of the Austrian Commission of Historians 3), especially p. 161.
  • Simon Loidl and Peter März: "... guarantors against fascism ..." The regional association of formerly politically persecuted Upper Austria. Upper Austrian Provincial Archives, Linz 2010, ISBN 978-3-902801-00-5