Eduard Goeth

Eduard Göth (born on February 3, 1898 in Vienna ; died on March 13, 1944 there ) was an Austrian teacher and resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

The senior teacher Eduard Göth ran a school of the Hitler Youth in the house of the Sauerstiftung in Hinterbrühl . He belonged to the resistance organization of the Revolutionary Socialists established by Johann Otto Haas , which was active in eastern Austria, Salzburg, Tyrol and southern Germany. For the purpose of camouflage, Göth took on the role of local administrator for the German Labor Front . The main focus of his resistance activity was the writing of reports on the armaments industry in Floridsdorf and Wiener Neustadt . In particular, his work in the Wiener Neustädter Flugzeugwerke was important for the group because he got an insight into the armament of the regime. The resistance group at its zenith consisted of at least 200 people. Presumably on the basis of a denunciation, it was finally broken up and at least forty members were sentenced to death .

Göth was arrested on August 7, 1942, identified , photographed and interrogated by the Vienna Gestapo . He was first imprisoned in the Gestapo headquarters on Morzinplatz in Vienna , then in the prison of the former Margareten District Court (now Mittersteig Prison ) and was finally deported to Berlin, where he was in a show trial before the People's Court on December 15, 1943 together with Johann Otto Haas Was sentenced to death by the guillotine . Roland Freisler chaired the meeting . Another co-defendant received a twelve-year prison term. In letters to his children in 1943, Göth wrote, among other things: “Because I have professed non-violence, I have to die. That is why I accuse: 1) Adolf Hitler, 2) Gestapo, room 223. Here I was forced to sign protocols with confessions that did not correspond to the truth. ”Göth's execution took place on March 13, 1944 in the Vienna Regional Court .

On December 20, 1945, preliminary judicial investigations began at the Vienna People's Court against the alleged informer, who had been appointed Göth's successor as local administrator at the German Labor Front in Hinterbrühl. Since nothing concrete could be proven, he was acquitted in 1946. However, because of the accompanying evidence, the procedural file is of great historical value. The file contains letters that Göth was able to send to his family. His mother-in-law had bribed an overseer with expensive butter and eggs. In these letters, the inmate described his situation very personally, marked by "spiritual loneliness, hunger, cold and dirt" and the concern for his family. He also dealt with the question of the risk taken.

Eduard Göth was buried in the shaft grave complex of group 40 of the Vienna Central Cemetery , in row 22, grave 47. The grave complex is now an honorary grove dedicated to the executed resistance fighters.

Commemoration

• Memorial stone in the main avenue of Blumau
• Memorial plaque of the SPÖ at the Mödling municipal cemetery
• Memorial plaque in the execution room of the Vienna Regional Court , today a place of consecration for the victims of the Nazi regime who were executed there
• Stolperstein in Hinterbrühl

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  Memorial stone in Blumau

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  Memorial plaque at the Mödling cemetery

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  Stolperstein in the Hinterbrühl

literature

• Willi Weinert: "You can put me out, but not the fire": Wiener Zentralfriedhof - Group 40. A guide through the grove of honor for the executed resistance fighters . 2nd Edition. Alfred Klahr Society, Vienna 2005, ISBN 978-3-9501986-0-7 , p. 116 .

Web links

• Documentation archive of the Austrian resistance : Selection of biographies of Nazi victims , accessed on July 30, 2015
• wien.at: Letter from resistance fighter Eduard Göth to his children in 1943 , accessed on July 30, 2015
• Reminder to the resistance in the Mödling district (PDF) page 7
• Eduard Göth in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna

Individual evidence

1. ^ Postwar Justice , accessed July 30, 2015