Eduard Wallnöfer

Eduard Wallnöfer - picture in the rococo hall of the old country house in Innsbruck .

Eduard Wallnöfer (born December 11, 1913 in Schluderns , South Tyrol ; † March 15, 1989 in Innsbruck ) was an Austrian politician ( ÖVP ) and governor of Tyrol from 1963 to 1987 .

Life and politics

Eduard Wallnöfer (right) with the Vorarlberg Governor Herbert Keßler in Hohenems in 1974

Eduard Wallnöfer attended the then two-year agricultural state college in Imst , which he graduated in 1933. He began his career in the 1930s as a secretary in the Chamber of Agriculture . Wallnöfer married the farmer's daughter Luise Thaler in 1940 and took over her parents' farm in Mieming . He served as a radio operator for the last 13 months of the war .

From 1945 Wallnöfer was a local councilor in Mieming. In 1949 he moved into the Tyrolean state parliament and became a state councilor , and in 1958 he was elected chairman of the Tyrolean farmers' union. Eduard Wallnöfer succeeded the governor Hans Tschiggfrey , who died surprisingly, in 1963 and handed over the office to Alois Partl in 1987 due to illness . Wallnöfer died in 1989 of pneumonia in the Innsbruck hospital.

During his term of office there was an economic upswing in Tyrol and an expansion of the traffic routes (e.g. Inntal motorway ). In 1972 he suggested the establishment of the Alpine countries working group (Arge Alp) . As a farmer and rifleman , he embodied the type of the successful “father of the country” for many Tyroleans. He gained broad approval and a high level of sympathy among the population.

He was an honorary member of the K.Ö.HV Leopoldina and the KÖHV Amelungia , both in the ÖCV .

Herwig van Staa , Governor of Tyrol from 2002 to 2008, is Wallnöfer's son-in-law.

National Socialist Past

On June 30, 1938, Wallnöfer applied for membership in the NSDAP local group in Imst . On January 1, 1941, he was admitted to the party under number 9.566.289. In the Second World War he was initially released from military service.

Wallnöfer's NSDAP membership did not become known to the general public until 2005, as corresponding files were found in the Berlin Document Center in the German Federal Archives . Wallnöfer did not register as a former party member in 1946 - as prescribed - which is why no denazification file could be found in the Tyrolean State Archives .

Awards

Eduard Wallnöfer Monument in Matrei in East Tyrol

• Large silver medal of the Republic of Austria
• Decoration of honor of the state of Tyrol
• Gold medal of the Tyrolean farmers' union
• Grand Cross of the New Year's Order
• Large Federal Cross of Merit with star and shoulder ribbon
• Bavarian Order of Merit
• Order of the British Empire (Grand Cross)
• Great Order of Montfort

literature

• Klaus Horst, Martin Marberger, Markus Hatzer (eds.): Wallnöfer. Farmer and sovereign . Edition Löwenzahn, Innsbruck 1993, ISBN 3-900521-28-X
• Horst Schreiber : Comments on the NSDAP membership of the former governor of Tyrol, Eduard Wallnöfer , in: Geschichte und Region / Storia e regione 1 (2005), pp. 167–198.

Web links

Commons : Eduard Wallnöfer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Entry on Eduard Wallnöfer in the Austria Forum  (in the AEIOU Austria Lexicon )
• Literature by and about Eduard Wallnöfer in the catalog of the German National Library
• Eduard Wallnöfer in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)
• Archive recordings with Eduard Wallnöfer in the online archive of the Austrian Media Library (discussions, interviews)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Horst Schreiber: On Eduard Wallnöfer's membership in the NSDAP , long version: [1] , accessed on May 26, 2016.