Fritz Molden

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Fritz Molden (2010)

Fritz P. Molden (born April 8, 1924 in Vienna ; † January 11, 2014 in Schwaz , Tyrol ) was an Austrian resistance fighter , journalist , author , publisher and diplomat .

Life

Fritz Molden, whose full name was Friedrich Peter Ernst Richard Gabriel Hildebrand Molden, was born as the son of Ernst Molden , editor-in-chief of the Neue Freie Presse , and Paula Preradović , author of the text of the Austrian national anthem , and grew up in an upper-class Viennese family. Most recently, Molden was fourth married to the translator and author Hanna Molden and the father of five children, including Ernst Molden , who, like his grandfather of the same name, works as an author, and the historian Berthold Molden. His brother was Otto Molden , his cousin Nikolaus von Preradovich .

Resistance to the Nazi regime

Molden was arrested for the first time at the age of 14 because he took part in actions against National Socialism as a member of the Catholic underground shortly after the “ Anschluss ” of Austria to the German Reich . He ended up in prison several times for this.

In the autumn of 1942, during World War II , he was transferred to a punitive battalion on the Russian Eastern Front, where he was wounded. Stationed with a Wehrmacht unit in central Italy in 1944 , he was allowed to vacation in Vienna in the spring. Molden had already come into contact with members of a German officers' resistance group through Major General Lahousen and received the order in Vienna through Alfons Stillfried to be available for a resistance mission to Switzerland. Back in Italy, he had to flee after a few weeks because conspirators in his unit had been exposed through treason and arrested.

First Molden hid with partisans in the Apennines , then he managed to escape via Milan to Ticino . In Switzerland he was immediately arrested by the Swiss police. However, he was able to reach an agreement with Max Waibel , the head of the Swiss military intelligence service, which was also recorded in writing in the summer of 1944: Members of the Austrian resistance were allowed to move freely in Switzerland, in exchange they would get Switzerland over all of Switzerland keep relevant plans and preparations of the Wehrmacht up to date. At that time there was fear of a possibly planned German last fortress reduit ( alpine fortress ) and an associated invasion of Switzerland.

With the so-called junction Switzerland by Kurt Grimm and Hans Thalberg Molden was finally with the Allied contact and acted henceforth as an intermediary between those and the Austrian Resistance O5 . Molden was codenamed Agent K-28 at the Office of Strategic Services .

Fritz Molden returned to Austria from Switzerland in September 1944 to look for members of the Maier-Messner-Caldonazzi resistance group who had not been arrested . With the help of the student Harald Frederiksen, he made contact with them, and they succeeded in building up a news network with around 40 people. Up until his arrest in January 1945, Frederiksen was able to send important information to the Allies in Switzerland every week.

Innsbruck was an inexpensive stopover for courier services between Vienna and Switzerland. From the end of November 1944, Molden was able to use the house of his godfather Richard Heuberger in Innsbruck as accommodation, later also as a meeting place for O5 meetings and even to hide a radio and, for a short time, two French liaison officers.

For his commitment in World War II, Fritz Molden was awarded the Medal of Freedom by the United States in 1947 .

Career as a journalist, editor and diplomat

After the end of the Second World War, Molden became secretary to Foreign Minister Karl Gruber , who was appointed by the Renner state government on September 26, 1945 and was in office in the following federal governments until November 26, 1953 , where he was responsible for press work, among other things. In 1946 he became the foreign editor of the daily newspaper Die Presse , which was re-founded by his father Ernst Molden , and succeeded the Neue Freie Presse , which was closed in 1939 . 1948/1949 Molden was a diplomat in the United States , where he worked in the information service of the Austrian Consulate General in New York .

In 1948 he married Joan Dulles, the daughter of the head of the OSS and later CIA chief Allen Welsh Dulles ; In April 2009 it was announced that the editor-in-chief of the press , Otto Schulmeister , had worked for the CIA for decades.

In 1950 Molden took over the commercial agendas of the press as publishing director and founded the weekly press in the same year . In 1958, as part of the conflict in the so-called Vienna Newspaper War, he founded the tabloid Express , which appeared in up to three editions per day, together with the later ORF general manager Gerd Bacher . In 1960 he bought the Wiener Wochenblatt (“WiWo”) from Fritz Herrmann .

At the height of his publishing career at the age of 36, Molden was probably the largest and most important newspaper publisher in the country at the time. His newspapers are said to have briefly held a market share of 28 percent. In the early 1960s, Molden was still publisher and editor-in-chief until 1961, when he was traded as one of the possible buyers for the Kronen Zeitung . However, the Creditanstalt , a nationalized bank, did not grant Molden the credit necessary to purchase.

At that time Molden was also very politically active and peacefully advocated the autonomy movement in South Tyrol . Until 1960 he negotiated with Austrians and Americans as a member of the Political Committee of the Liberation Committee of South Tyrol . He repeated the following sentence several times: “You have to demand the right to self-determination for South Tyrol so that you at least get regional autonomy.” He also often represented the South Tyrolean advisor of the Tyrolean provincial government, Aloys Oberhammer , as he was banned from entering Italy. After the struggle for an autonomous South Tyrol had become bloody and was increasingly taken over by right-wing extremists around Norbert Burger , Molden ended his engagement. In retrospect, however, he assessed the effects on the eventual completion of the South Tyrol Package as positive. His companion Gerd Bacher, however, admitted a personal involvement in the logistical preparation of the attacks.

In the 1980s, Molden, as President of the World Federation of Austrians Abroad (AÖWB) , campaigned for broader regulation of dual citizenship and the introduction of postal voting .

Career as a publisher and consultant

In 1964, Molden, who is known to be willing to take risks, fulfilled a long-cherished dream by founding his own book publisher, Fritz Molden Verlag . The publisher, which published memoirs, non-fiction books and modern bestsellers, soon became internationally known for its striking advertising and well-known authors.

But despite several bestsellers - including Hildegard Knef's Der schenkte Gaul (1970) - the publisher slid into bankruptcy in 1982 ; a large part of the book rights were sold to Bertelsmann . Molden lost all of his possessions apart from his private house in Tyrol .

In his book The Bankruptcy , Molden processed his experiences and dared a new beginning. On behalf of ORF, he produced the TV series Auf red-white-red traces , which is about Austrians abroad . In addition, Molden devoted himself again to his own writing. In 1987 he took on special diplomatic missions and traveled through Europe with the aim of polishing up Austria's image , which had been scratched by the Waldheim affair .

In 1988 Molden advised Oscar Bronner on the founding of the Vienna daily Der Standard and was at his side as a consultant until 1995.

In January 2005 he handed over his Molden-Verlag, which he had newly founded in 1995, to the tax advisor Bernhard Vanas.

death

Grave site in the Vienna Central Cemetery

Molden died on January 11, 2014 in Schwaz. In the days that followed it graced the front pages of many Austrian newspapers. Some German media also reported. Among other things, the ORF changed its program after the death became known and dedicated a special broadcast to it.

Molden was buried on January 20, 2014 as part of a large funeral. The mourners included high-profile politicians and well-known entrepreneurs.

He rests together with his parents Ernst Molden and Paula Preradović and his brother Otto in a grave of honor in the Vienna Central Cemetery (Group 32C, number 42) very close to the crypt of the Federal Presidents .

Awards

Works

  • Well-tested Austria: My political memories. Amalthea Verlag, Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-85002-614-7 .
  • Grew up behind green blinds. Forgotten stories from Austria's bourgeois world . Ibera & Molden, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-900436-32-0 .
  • Squatters, fools, honest men. A report from Austria 1945–1962 . Goldmann, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-442-26743-9 .
  • Fepolinski and Waschlapski on the bursting star. Report of a restless youth . Ibera & Molden, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-900436-42-8 .
  • Fire in the night. Victims and meaning of the Austrian resistance 1938–1945 . Amalthea-Verlag, Vienna 1988, ISBN 3-85002-262-5 .
  • The bankruptcy. The rise and fall of a publisher . Hoffmann & Campe, Hamburg 1984, ISBN 3-455-08630-6 .
  • The Austrians or The Power of History . Langen-Müller, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-7844-2116-4 .
  • Hungary's struggle for freedom . Libertas Verlag, Vienna 1957 (together with Eugen Géza Pogany )
  • Austria. A summary in facts and figures. New York 1949.

literature

Web links

Commons : Fritz Molden  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Hans Werner Scheidl: Resistance fighter and publisher Fritz Molden is dead. In: diepresse.com . January 11, 2014, accessed on April 12, 2019.
  2. ↑ Harald Fidler : Resistance fighter, newspaper maker, book publisher Fritz Molden died. In: derstandard.at . January 11, 2014, accessed on April 12, 2019.
  3. ↑ Fritz Molden. In: Kürschner's German Literature Calendar 2014/2015: Volume I: AO. Volume II: PZ. , Walter De Gruyter Incorporated, 2014, pp. 709-710, ISBN 978-3-11-033720-4 .
  4. ↑ Friedrich Peter Ernst Richard Gabriel Hildebrand in the search for the deceased at friedhoefewien.at.
  5. ^ Fritz Molden: The fires in the night - victims and meaning of the Austrian resistance 1938-1945 . Amalthea, Vienna 1988, ISBN 978-3-85002-262-0 , p. 125-127 .
  6. ↑ Siegfried Beer : "Arcel / Cassia / Redbird": The Maier-Messner resistance group and the American war secret service OSS in Bern, Istanbul and Algiers 1943/44 . In: DÖS (Hrsg.): Yearbook 1993: Focus on resistance . 1993, p. 75 .
  7. ↑ Radomír Luža : The Resistance in Austria 1938–1945. Österreichischer Bundesverlag, Vienna 1983, ISBN 3-215-05477-9 , pp. 198 .
  8. ↑ Roland Steinacher: Richard Heuberger and National Socialism. (PFD; 237 kB) In: univie.ac.at. March 31, 2007, p. 7 f. , accessed October 9, 2017 .
  9. ↑ Christa Zöchling : Ex- "press" boss in the service of the CIA . In: news magazine profile . Vienna, April 18, 2009.
  10. ^ Freikorps Fleischmarkt . In: News magazine Der Spiegel . Hamburg, No. 52/1960.
  11. ↑ Terror around Tyrol: Nights of Fire and Torturers. On the website of the news magazine profil , Vienna, May 14, 2011.
  12. ↑ Gerd Bacher ( memento from February 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) in dieMedien.at, October 25, 2008.
  13. ↑ World Federation of Austrians Abroad: Fritz Molden, Dante Bernardin and Werner Götz , text from September 4, 1986 on a website of the Austrian National Bank, accessed on January 11, 2014.
  14. ↑ Harald Fiedler: Molden "was an Austrian hero". In: derstandard.at. January 20, 2014, accessed April 12, 2019 .
  15. ↑ Ferrero-Waldner awards federal decorations for the first time. BMEIA , November 20, 2002, accessed April 12, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Molden, Fritz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Molden, Friedrich Peter Ernst Richard Gabriel Hildebrand (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian resistance fighter, journalist, publisher and diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH April 8, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH January 11, 2014
Place of death Schwaz , Tyrol