František Rasch

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František Rasch also Franz Rasch or František Raš (born on December 9, 1889 in Přerov ( Moravia , Czech Republic ); executed on February 11, 1918 in Škaljari near Kotor ) was an important leader of the sailors' uprising in Cattaro .

František Rasch

Family and education

The father Adolf Rasch was German and a tailor by trade. The mother Kateřina Raschová, b. Petříková was Czech. They had eight children, František was the fourth. When he was six years old, the family moved to Opava, also in Moravia , where his father got a job as a postal worker.

The head of the town archive in Přerov / Prerau, Jiří Lapáček suspects that František most likely completed five classes at the German community school and later three classes at the community school by 1903. He then attended business school and was trained as a commercial assistant in a hardware store in Opava / Troppau. As soon as he finished his apprenticeship in 1905, he went to Šibenik and enrolled in the local school for ship boys. The military school lasted two years. Then he did his military service. Rasch spent the years 1905 to 1913 at sea or in various naval bases.

Cattaro Sailors Revolt

With the outbreak of war in 1914, Rasch was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Navy as a reservist. At the beginning of 1918 he was stationed as titular boatman (senior non-commissioned officer) at the lighting department in Kumbor (located on the central bay of Cattaro).

It is not entirely clear how intensively Rasch was involved in the preparations for the sailors' uprising at Cattaro . Bruno Frei and Jindřich Veselý describe various loose groups who wanted to protest against the situation, which was perceived as catastrophic. To this end, they wanted to join the great wave of strikes in Austria-Hungary and give it a further boost. Rasch also apparently belonged to these groups. Veselý describes him as ingenious / brilliant and as a conscious social democrat.

However, he did not appear publicly until the second day of the uprising, when he was the main spokesman for the central sailors' committee on the flagship (Austrian: flagship) SMS Sankt Georg , the center of the uprising. Plaschka sees in Rasch the determining element of the revolt, who also clearly addressed the social-revolutionary perspective: "That the system in the state must be broken."

Stand trial and execution

The uprising had to be broken off on the third day because the strike wave in Austria-Hungary had come to a standstill shortly before, because there was no greater support from the population and the forces stationed on land, and because the military leadership had succeeded in attracting loyal forces . As a result, 678 members of the Navy were arrested, including Rasch. Of these, 40 were brought before a court martial, four of which, including Rasch, were sentenced to death by shooting on February 10, 1918. A pardon from civil attorney Dr. Mitrović to the emperor, which was justified, among other things, with unfair litigation, went unanswered. The execution took place early in the morning on February 11, 1918 below the cemetery walls of the nearby village of Skaljari . They were buried in a common grave.

There is a report by the Croatian field curate (Austrian for military chaplain ) Don Niko Luković about the last hours of the condemned , which was written down by the writer and historian Niko Simov Martinovic. Plaschka summarized this report. After that, the prisoners were sentenced at 5:00 a.m. While Grabar, Sisgorić and Berničevič got together, Rasch would have remained calm and replied: “Gentlemen, in my opinion this is a judicial murder.” Thereupon the clergyman spoke to the convicted. Rasch declared that as a socialist he had fought for freedom, for workers' rights and for a better social order. And he fought in the military against this unjust war of conquest, encouraged by the events in Russia. There would be a new sun there that would shine not only on the Slavs but on all the peoples of the world and bring them peace and justice. Don Luković began to comfort the convicted sailors by admitting that they went innocently to another world, victims of a just cause. Then they were taken to the place of execution. Nobody was allowed to appear in the street or even at the windows. There the judgment was read out again. A Hungarian captain was in command of the peloton . Quickly did not want a blindfold, Grabar asked for pity, he had a wife and child. Quickly shouted: “This is a judicial murder!” And “Long live freedom!” The captain drew the saber and gave the command. He had to give it three times. Twice the peloton had not obeyed. One had passed out. Then there was a volley. Everyone except Grabar was killed instantly. The captain sent two soldiers who had to shoot him.

Commemoration

In Skaljari there is a memorial stone and in Kotor there are two plaques on the courthouse and on the prison, on which the names of those who were shot are recorded. In Rasch's hometown of Prerov, a street and a square with a park were named after him. There, near the Faculty of Education, his bust was also placed along with an information board.

  • Memorial in front of the Skaljari cemetery , about 15 minutes' walk from Kotor (Cattaro). Below the cemetery wall, the four sailors including Rasch were shot dead.

  • Bust of František Rasch in Přerov.

  • Information board in Přerov; Headline: Rasch and the Sailors' Uprising in the Bay of Kotor.

  • Back of the information board.

literature

  • Peter Fitl: mutiny and court martial. The sailors' revolt in the Cattaro naval port of February 1918 and its aftermath in court martial. Vienna 2018.
  • Bruno Frei : The sailors from Cattaro. An episode from the revolutionary year 1918. New edition Berlin 1963.
  • René Greger: Marine mutiny in Cattaro and Franz Rasch. In: Marine Rundschau Vol. 85 No. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1988), pp. 351-356.
  • Richard Georg Plaschka : Cattaro - Prague. Revolt and revolution. The Austro-Hungarian Navy and Army in the fire of the uprising movements of February 1 and October 28, 1918. Graz 1963.
  • Richard, G. Plaschka / Horst Haselsteiner / Arnold Suppan : Inner front. Military assistance, resistance and overthrow in the Danube Monarchy 1918. Vol. 1: Between strike and mutiny. Vienna 1974.
  • Bernard Stulli: Ustanka mornara u Boki Kotorskoj February 1 - 3, 1918 (Croatian: sailors' revolt in the bay of Cattaro February 1 - 3, 1918). Split 1959.
  • Jindřich Veselý: Povstání v Boce Kotorské. Historická kronika (Czech: Uprising in the Bay of Kotor. Historical Chronicle). Prague 1958. Available online (April 10, 2020) as a PDF document with a different number of pages at: [4] .

Remarks

  1. ↑ Spelling after the entry in the birth and baptismal register. Scan available online (accessed April 11, 2020) at: [1] .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Markéta Kachlíkova: German Böhme [Franz Rasch] at the top of the mutiny at Cattaro. Radio CZ broadcast in German on February 3, 2018. Accessible online (accessed on March 23, 2020) at: [2] . The historian Jindřich Marek was interviewed in the program.
  2. ↑ Kachlíková, Cattaro.
  3. ^ Richard Georg Plaschka / Horst Haselsteiner / Arnold Suppan : Inner front. Military assistance, resistance and overthrow in the Danube Monarchy 1918. Vol. 1: Between strike and mutiny. Vienna 1974, p. 128.
  4. ↑ Jindřich Veselý: Povstání v Boce Kotorské. Historická kronika (Czech: Uprising in the Bay of Kotor. Historical Chronicle). Prague 1958, p. 33 f. (PDF p. 20). Available online (April 10, 2020) as a PDF document with a different number of pages under: [3] . Bruno Frei (see under literature, p. 42) expresses himself similarly. However, both do not give any verifiable sources. One can only assume that they are based on interviews with contemporary witnesses. Bruno Frei names Ujdur and Veselý lists several people in the appendix whom he interviewed.
  5. ^ Richard Georg Plaschka : Avant-garde of resistance. Model cases of military rebellion in the 19th and 20th centuries. 2 vol. Vienna 2000, p. 255.
  6. ↑ Peter FITL: mutiny and court martial. The sailors' revolt in the Cattaro naval port of February 1918 and its aftermath in court martial. Vienna 2018, pp. 150–161.
  7. ↑ Kachlíková, Cattaro.
  8. ↑ Plaschka / Haselsteiner / Suppan, Innere Front, p. 145 f.
  9. ↑ Plaschka, Avantgarde, p. 256.