Ernst Ortner

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Ernst Ortner (born September 1, 1914 in Innsbruck , † March 22, 1945 in Vienna ) was an Austrian resistance fighter in the Third Reich .

Life

Ernst Ortner attended high school in Kufstein , where he became a member of the Catholic school association Cimbria Kufstein . In the Armed Forces serving he was in 1938 in the German Wehrmacht drafted where he most recently served as Master Sergeant of the Air Force.

Strengthened by his Catholic convictions and his love of home, he organized a resistance group from 1941 together with the Luftwaffe sergeant , Eduard Pumpernig , who was stationed in Klagenfurt just like him . In March 1942, in the presence of Ortner and other opponents of Hitler's Germany, a meeting took place at which the group gave itself the name Antifascist Freedom Movement in Austria . The group's activities particularly extended to Klagenfurt and Vienna, but also to other places in Austria. Ernst Ortner also acted as the group's liaison to Lienz , where he recruited members and gave them anti-Nazi leaflets for distribution.

This group was betrayed by a spy and so Ortner was arrested by the Gestapo on July 20, 1943 and imprisoned in Vienna .

At the hearing from August 9-11, 1944, he was indicted together with twelve arrested persons. Like seven of his comrades, Ortner was sentenced to death for preparation for high treason, degradation of military strength and favoring the enemy. During his imprisonment on death row, he met his brother Walter Caldonazzi . On March 22, 1945, Ernst Ortner was executed in the Vienna Regional Court .

Memorials

  • In 1989 a memorial plaque was unveiled for Ernst Ortner and Walter Caldonazzi on the lower town square in Kufstein, which reads: “The Austrian Catholic student association Cimbria Kufstein commemorates its Nazi victims Dipl.-Ing. Walter Caldonazzi and Ernst Ortner. "
  • On the Liberation Monument in Innsbruck Ortner's name is listed under "those who died for Austria's freedom".

literature

  • Wearing Colors - Confessing Colors, 1938–1945, Catholic Corporates in Resistance and Persecution. Austrian Association for Student History, Vienna 1988.
  • Wilhelm Baum: Ernst Ortner , in: The book of names. The victims of National Socialism in Carinthia , Klagenfurt 2010, p. 656 f.
  • Wilhelm Baum: Sentenced to death. Nazi Justice and Resistance in Carinthia , Klagenfurt 2012.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Horst Schreiber, Christopher Grüner (ed.): Those who died for the freedom of Austria: The liberation monument in Innsbruck. Processes of remembering . Universitätsverlag Wagner, Innsbruck 2016, ISBN 978-3-7030-0955-6 , p. 97 f .
personal data
SURNAME Ortner, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian resistance fighter in the Third Reich
DATE OF BIRTH September 1, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH innsbruck
DATE OF DEATH March 22, 1945
Place of death Vienna