Gereon Ausserlechner

Gereon Josef Ausserlechner (born September 4, 1904 in Kartitsch , Tyrol , † June 13, 1944 in Dachau concentration camp ) was an Austrian Premonstratensian and resistance fighter .

Life

Gereon Ausserlechner grew up as the third of seven children on a farm run by his parents. From 1910 to 1918 he attended elementary school in his home town of Kartitsch. He lost his father, who as a soldier in a young age WWI fell. Therefore, he took an early stand against war and totalitarian systems. From 1918 to 1919 he graduated from the Rotholz Agricultural College in Jenbach , initially working on his parents' farm, but also on a farm in neighboring Sexten in South Tyrol . In 1927, after the death of his mother, he initially took over his parents' farm, but after only a year he passed this responsibility on to his siblings, especially since the economic situation made it increasingly difficult to support the entire family.

On May 19, 1928, he entered the Premonstratensian Canons' Monastery in Wilten , where he also took his religious vows on May 22, 1932 under Abbot Heinrich Schuler . His tasks included serving in the refectory but also looking after the monastery garden. After the "Anschluss of Austria" to the German Reich in March 1938, the monastery was dissolved and expropriated by the new rulers in 1939, and the buildings were transferred to the state of Tyrol. Ausserlechner returned to Kartitsch, where he worked as a servant in the Neuwirt inn.

In his sermons Ausserlechner appeared several times against the ideology of National Socialism . He also refused, as required of him, to take up the Reich Labor Service . On March 3, 1943, the Secret State Police appeared in Kartitsch and arrested Ausserlechner. He was taken to the Dachau concentration camp deported . According to the records of the camp administration, Ausserlechner allegedly died on June 13, 1944 during an Allied air raid on Dachau . After the war, however, a survivor stated that Ausserlechner had been tortured to break his will. He finally died of the injuries at the age of 39.

literature

• N. Kogler:  Ausserlechner, Gereon . In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 . 2nd revised edition (online only).
• Ekkart Sauser :  Gereon Ausserlechner. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 20, Bautz, Nordhausen 2002, ISBN 3-88309-091-3 , Sp. 79-80.