Franz Rosenkranz

Franz Rosenkranz (born September 18, 1886 in Erlat in the Vöcklabruck district ; † April 19, 1945 in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp ) was an Austrian officer and victim of the Nazi regime and, as a commander, was involved in the suppression of the Lamprechtshausen Nazi putsch .

Life

After finishing school, Rosenkranz started his career as a brewer and on October 1, 1908, he joined the 4th Field Company of Infantry Regiment 59 "Archduke Rainer" . As he proved to be a very good soldier, he was quickly promoted and in 1914 reached the rank of sergeant major .

With his regiment he was deployed on the northern front during the First World War until the beginning of 1916 and was promoted to the position of deputy officer . He was wounded several times and suffered a bullet through the thigh, one through the left hand and the left arm. Other missions followed on the southern front, where he contracted asthma as a result of a gas attack . His most outstanding achievement was the creation of the telephone exchange on the Cimone .

After the war, at the time of the People's Army , he was employed from January 1, 1919 to June 1, 1920 as an administrator of telegraph and telephone material at the Salzburg arms depot. From April 1, 1920 he returned to the Army of the 1st Republic as a soldier in the Alpine Hunter Battalion No. 3 in Salzburg . His first assignment took him from September 10, 1921 to January 10, 1922 to the border service in Burgenland . Due to his first-class job description, he was assigned to Enns on January 12, 1922 for the officer candidate course. On July 31, 1924 he was promoted to lieutenant , on April 14, 1927, he was promoted to first lieutenant . With his promotion to captain on June 24, 1932 , he was appointed commander of the 2nd Company. His attitude was consistently German national. He was chairman of the Wehrbund in Salzburg and was even imprisoned for two days in 1936 because he did not report a Nazi rally in Moosstrasse, at which other soldiers were also present. He also campaigned for so-called “illegal” professional soldiers. However, he made a clear distinction between convictions and orders.

July coup of the National Socialists in the state of Salzburg

On July 25, 1934, the National Socialists tried to overthrow the government in Vienna; Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss was murdered. While the July coup failed in Vienna and the putschists were arrested, the uprisings in the federal states dragged on for a few days. The procedure was outlined in the so-called Kollerschlager document . However, the situation did not develop as the National Socialists had hoped. H. the armed forces, the gendarmerie and the police were loyal to the state of Austria. The attempts of the Austrian Legion to invade Austria from Germany were also miserable.

In the state of Salzburg, too, the attempted insurrection was stopped relatively quickly before it had really started. Only after Lamprechtshausen did the news that the putsch not succeed did not get through. Gregor Gruber had visited the SA leader of the Flachgau, Friedrich Kaltner, in Salzburg to obtain orders and had actually received the order from him to go to a certain point in Anthering the next day . There he received a written order on July 27th at 5pm with the following wording: “Carry out action on July 27th at 7.30pm.” Thereupon the Lamprechtshausener SA was alerted, and the action in this place was for the time being according to the known scheme from. The insurgents in Lamprechtshausen were evidently of the opinion that a break-in by the Austrian Legion was imminent and that a federal army unit on border service would stand still. During the night there were several shootings in which several members of the protective corps suffered various degrees of injuries. On July 27, 1934, a truck led by Sturmführer Franz Natschläger entered the town with putschists armed with swastika arrows. The gendarmerie post was ambushed, the officers disarmed and taken prisoner. The post office was stormed and communications cut, a man stayed behind to guard. The planned theft of the money did not take place. The headquarters were set up in the Stadler inn. Gregor Gruber, a then 19-year-old, was considered the ringleader of the National Socialists.

Attempts by the Heimwehr , the Gendarmerie and the Schutzkorps to liberate Lamprechtshausen were repulsed by the SA men with violent defensive fire. First two officers, then eight other attackers, were wounded by 25 Home Guard soldiers. The prisoners who were brought in were housed in the dance hall of the Stadler inn, which also functioned as a prison for all "patriotic" people. A wounded home fighter was killed by Dr. Sprenger supplied. This inn was the heart of the uprising. Even today it is a mighty inn, located directly on the main street, with a very good view and an excellent fire area. The head of the putsch was the then 19-year-old Gregor Gruber, who, in turn, had received instructions from SA leader Fritz Kaltner in Salzburg.

Captain Rosenkranz received the order from Colonel Stochmal via the deputy battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Celar to intervene with his company in Lamprechtshausen on July 28th. A platoon of the machine gun company and a mountain cannon half platoon were placed under him as reinforcement. At 5.15 am, the approximately 120-strong unit reached the Riedlkam forest . Here the vehicles remained under guard. Captain Rosenkranz sent forward on Lamprechtshausen from three sides. The first platoon under officer Weideder from the north, the second platoon under sergeant Fingernail from the east and the third platoon. Train under Lieutenant Preßlmayr from the south. The gun and machine gun were on the second platoon, with Captain Rosenkranz also taking up position. The negotiator sent by Captain Rosenkranz was immediately shot at by the SA men. At around 7:00 am the place was surrounded. Thereupon Captain Rosenkranz sent another negotiator to the rebels to call on the putschists to surrender. This was also shot at. After this second act of war, the order to attack was given. When the inn and the other houses in which the insurgents were located were surrounded by the 1st and 2nd platoons, the storm and close combat took place in the inn. At 9 o'clock, Captain Rosenkranz was able to report to Salzburg that Lamprechtshausen could be taken without the fight being completely over.

During the transmission of orders to the operation in Lamprechtshausen, Captain Rosenkranz received the fateful order "not to take prisoners" in advance . Captain Rosenkranz received this order as it was intended. He asked Lieutenant Colonel Celar, who replied: "You are an old soldier at the front, you will already know what that means." This answer showed that Rosenkranz should interpret it himself. He interpreted them as follows: The population should not be alarmed, the people involved should stay at home, fighting only when absolutely necessary. In no case was the murder of prisoners called for. This was also shown by the fact that Rosenkranz had left the SA men open to escape across the Salzach west of Lamprechtshausen. This procedure was actually forbidden because any coup plotters should be prosecuted.

In this failed putsch eight people died in Lamprechtshausen, two of them on the side of the federal army (Josef Gassner from Hofgastein and Viktor Mayr from Reifnitz ). Six men died on the putschists' side: Franz Armstorfer, Josef Maislinger, Josef Weilbuchner, Kilian Widmann and Johann Wimmer. The leader of the putsch, Franz Natschläger, later died as a result of his serious injury. The two soldiers were shot in the stomach while fighting in the inn. Colonel Stochmal came to Lamprechtshausen from Salzburg, thanked him for the successful completion of the order and sent for Salzburg around 3 p.m. on July 28th.

The 52 surviving SA men were interned in the Hohensalzburg Fortress. 28 were charged and received sentences ranging from 5 to 18 years in prison. They had to serve their sentence in Garsten . The community was meanwhile placed under the administration of a government commissioner. The judicially convicted National Socialist putschists were given amnesty after a few years (cf. the “ July Agreement ” of July 11, 1936) or were released in March 1938 at the latest when Austria was annexed .

Persecution in the time of National Socialism

After 1938, "The Lamprechtshausener Weihespiel" to celebrate the so-called "Homecoming of the Ostmark" and in honor of the putschists of Lamprechtshausen should have been played instead of the annual performance of "Jedermann" on Salzburg Cathedral Square, as demanded by Karl Springenschmid , a National Socialist author . In fact, it was only performed twice by the Nazis on a specially built open-air stage near Lamprechtshausen, with hero honors also taking place for the SA men who were killed.

After the “ Anschluss of Austria ” in March 1938, those responsible for the military overthrow of the Nazi putsch and the legal prosecution of the perpetrators were arrested and brought to justice. The Prosecutor, Chief Public Prosecutor Dr. Balthasar , called for the death penalty for Captain Rosenkranz and Major General Stochmal, the court sentenced them to six and eight years in heavy prison. Although acquitted twice by the appellate authority in Dresden after four years, Captain Rosenkranz was taken to a concentration camp as an "honorary prisoner" , at the request of the Chief Public Prosecutor Dr. Balthasar, who was also responsible for the required death sentences. He supposedly did this to protect Captain Rosenkranz from the angry Salzburg population, as he could not guarantee his life. Captain Rosenkranz was first brought to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, then to Lublin and back again. Two days before the liberation by Allied troops, Rosenkranz was shot in the neck outside the camp, along with other prisoners. Dr. Balthasar was never held responsible for his actions and lived undisturbed in Salzburg after the war.

The other Austrian officials and soldiers who had something to do with the attempted coup in Lamprechtshausen had a similar experience: The judge of the trials against the National Socialists, Dr. Langer was the April 7, 1938 Dachau concentration camp deported by the SS so tormented that he in 1938 on October 12 suicide committed. Salzburg's security director, Colonel Ludwig Bechinie , was arrested on March 12 and then taken to the Buchenwald concentration camp in September 1938 , where he was murdered on May 15, 1941. Major General Stochmal was finally transferred to the Auschwitz concentration camp and then to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he too was probably shot shortly before the end of the war. Lieutenant Colonel Celar was the only one who fared better; he was the only one acquitted.

Awards

First World War (Austro-Hungarian monarchy)

• Silver medal for bravery 1st class
• Bronze medal for bravery
• Silver medal for bravery 2nd class
• Wound medal with two stripes
• Iron Cross of Merit with the crown on the ribbon of the medal of bravery
• Royal Prussian War Merit Medal

First Republic of Austria

• Gold Medal of Honor of the State of Austria
• Silver Merit of the Republic of Austria
• Military service mark for officers 2nd class
• Hungarian World War II commemorative medal with swords and helmet
• Swords for war memorial medal

literature

• Kurt Bauer: Elementary Event - The Austrian National Socialists and the July Putsch 1934. Vienna, Czernin Verlag, 2003. ISBN 3-7076-0164-1
• Kurt Bauer: Socio-historical aspects of the National Socialist July coup 1934. Dissertation, Vienna, 2001.
• Friedrich Lepperdinger: The brown drum. Bürmoos 1938-1945. Lamprechtshausen: Ed. Torferneuerungsverein Bürmoos, no year.
• Andreas Maislinger: The Lamprechtshausen putsch - witnesses of July 1934 report. Self-published, 1992.
• Springenschmid, Karl: The Lamprechtshausener consecration play. The struggle and hardship of a German village in Austria. Berlin undated

Web links

• The Lamprechtshausen putsch
• Captain Rosenkranz Commander of the II./IR 3

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Friedrich Lepperdinger, undated, p. 50.