Graz partisan murder trial

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Judgment of the People's Court of Graz of September 26, 1946 in the partisan murder trial, page 1

The Graz partisan murder trial was a judicial criminal proceeding about the shooting of five men who fought as partisans in western Styria , Austria , against the National Socialist German Reich in 1944/45 .

The act was committed on April 1, 1945, in the last days of the Second World War . The scene of the crime was the site of the Reich Labor Service Camp (RAD camp) in St. Oswald in Freiland in the Deutschlandsberg district . The act is counted among the final phase crimes of that time.

The main public hearing took place before the People's Court in Graz from September 23 to 26, 1946; the verdict was announced on September 26, 1946.

background

Tensions between representatives of the German and Slovenian populations in Styria had already existed in the 19th century . One of their occasions was the disproportionate consideration of the Slovenian population group in the then Styrian state parliament . After the First World War , the southern part of the previously existing Duchy of Styria , Lower Styria , was attached to Yugoslavia (the former SHS state ). Against this there were protests from the German population in this area.

Tensions reached a climax in 1919 with the Marburg Blood Sunday , which claimed 13 dead and 60 injured civilians . German national representatives kept the memory alive. They demanded the restoration of the situation before the State Treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye , which established the new territorial allocation. The requests for revision were also justified with anti-German attitudes on the part of the Slovene side, furthermore with alleged ideas of creating a Slavic-dominated corridor from the Adriatic Sea near Slovenia via Eastern Styria and Burgenland to Pressburg and further via Poland to the Baltic Sea and using Austrian territory for this purpose .

From 1941, after the German Balkan campaign and the capitulation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia , Lower Styria was actually again under German civil administration as a CdZ area Lower Styria . Like all institutions of the German Reich in this area, this was fought by the Yugoslav People's Liberation Army in a partisan war. The partisans of the People's Liberation Army became known as " Tito Partisans " after the name of their supreme leader .

From 1944, its activities also extended to western Styria .

prehistory

Actions by the partisans

Memorial plaque on the Drava crossing of the Lackov combat group near Ožbalt

In September 1944, an association of the People's Liberation Army, the “Kampfgruppe Lackov” (Lackov Odred, Lackov Command), came from the south and crossed the Drava near Ožbalt , the then St. Oswald in the Drava Forest. The approximately 200-300 members of the association acted in this final phase of the Second World War mostly in smaller groups and infiltrated from the south into western Styria. They began to attack infrastructure facilities such as municipal offices and gendarmerie posts in the Leibnitz and Deutschlandsberg districts of Styria . Furthermore, they sabotaged militarily important facilities such as bridges and railways. They kidnapped and murdered people who were considered to be representatives of the National Socialist regime . Another project of the members of the association was to educate the population about the goals of the freedom fighters and to create centers of resistance.

The advance of the association triggered a series of clashes with the police at the time, which resulted in dozen deaths on both sides. The situation gave the representatives of the administrative offices in the area the opportunity to describe the partisans as "bandits, looters, cutthroats" and to warn the population against their support.

Members of other partisan groups, deserters of the Wehrmacht, escaped prisoners of war and forced laborers had temporarily joined the Lackov combat group. Among them was the "Kampfgruppe Avantgarde" (later Kampfgruppe Steiermark, which became known as the "Koralmpartisanen"). This federation was initially composed largely of former Austrian fighters from Spain who were parachuted to Črnomelj (then Tschernembl) in Slovenia in 1944 and wandered north. The members of this group had politico-military goals. You should make a contribution to the liberation of Austria. They had largely received their training in the Soviet Union by the Red Army with the support of Austrian communists , e. B. by Franz Honner , Johann Koplenig and Ernst Fischer . For their actions, they could refer to the Moscow Declaration , which contained a passage about Austria's own contribution to liberation from German rule.

This partisan group had split up during Holy Week 1945, some members stayed with the Lackov Association, another part had moved to the Koralm area to the north in the area around Glashütten with around nine people under the leadership of the Viennese resistance fighter Walter Wachs . From there they roamed through the upper Laßnitz valley in the then still independent communities of Trahütten , Osterwitz , Freiland bei Deutschlandsberg and Kloster . The area west above Schwanberg was considered a liberated area in the last six weeks of the war, in which the partisans practically exercised sovereign rights. The forester's house Plank west of Osterwitz (Revier Landsberger Brendl) on the northern slope of the Handalm is given as the headquarters .

The backing of the partisans in the population of their area of ​​operation, which consisted mainly of peasant families, varied widely and ranged from full support to tacit tolerance to immediate denunciation to the authorities. The civilian population stood between the two sides and had to expect that depending on their behavior, the other side would use violence. In “enemy-threatened Reich defense districts”, court martial was introduced from February 1945 to which civilians were also subordinate and for whose decision there was a choice between the death penalty, acquittal or transfer to the ordinary courts. The partisans' political positions, based largely on communist sources, were unsuccessful. One of the reasons for this was that the liberation of the peasants from the oppression by the manorial organization (which was a starting point for communist arguments in other countries) had already taken place in Austria with the basic relief almost 100 years earlier.

Camp of the Reich Labor Service

The barracks of the camp were on the southern slope of the village

In the village of St. Oswald in Freiland in the municipality of Kloster, a camp of the Reich Labor Service was set up in 1938 to expand the road connections in the area, especially the route via Klosterwinkel to Sallegg and Gams . The barracks of the camp stood on terraces that had been laid out between Hebalmstrasse and the path to the church. The course of these terraces remained traceable in the area; single-family houses and other buildings in the center of St. Oswald were built on their area from 1946. The camp was also used for preparation camps for other institutions such as the Marburg Teachers' Training College. In the course of the war, the Reich Labor Service became more and more a support organization for the Wehrmacht, until it was also given basic military training in 1944 . The residents of the camp were ultimately deployed against the partisans as part of the Wehrmacht; at the end of November 1944 they received “anti-bandit training” and were sent on “bandit patrols”.

Skirmishes and shootings of civilians

Companies of the Reich Labor Service in the St. Oswald camp

The partisans had been warned about the inmates of this camp, but nevertheless made themselves felt in the vicinity. In March 1945 the municipal office of Osterwitz was devastated by a partisan attack. On March 15, 1945, a gendarme from the Trahütten post was shot dead by an already arrested partisan whom he should have brought to Deutschlandsberg.

In the days that followed, this prompted the arrest of a number of people suspected of being partisan supporters. Their arrest was celebrated on March 25th in a victory ceremony. On April 10, 1945, 18 people were shot dead in a bomb crater on the eastern border of the Hebalm . The point ( ⊙ ) is not marked, but can still be seen in the terrain. It is located in the forest north of the former farm known as Leitner (Leitnerwald) a few meters south of today's Hebalmstrasse , at a junction about two kilometers southeast of the Rehbockhütte and south of the Blochriegels .

Capture of the partisan group

At the end of March a group of partisans appeared at the farm of the then local group leader von Osterwitz and requisitioned equipment (mainly clothing, etc.), which were intended to equip new members of the group. This incident had been reported to the RAD camp via a nearby farm that had a telephone connection (which in turn triggered a retaliatory action by the partisans on April 20, 1945). The next day, April 1st, Easter Sunday in 1945, the partisan group was still in the vicinity, southeast of St. Oswald in Freiland in a farm.

A 20-strong special unit from the RAD camp found tracks in the snow, surrounded the house and took the group prisoner. This Sonderkommando was headed by one of the later defendants, another defendant was one of the participants.

Sequence of events

The captured partisans were taken to the RAD camp. After the incident was reported to the district leader of the NSDAP in Deutschlandsberg , Hugo Suette , he gave the order to interrogate and "kill" the prisoners. This order was taken as an order and followed by the later defendants.

Suette was not in charge of the camp residents. However, he exercised authority and judicial power as a " combat commandant " (see also the organization of the court martial, which would have been responsible for such cases and to which a NSDAP official had to belong). After the first notification, other phone calls took place in which Suette had confirmed his orders to camp manager Scholler, despite his objections and attempts to mitigate, and threatened "with the most serious consequences" if they were ignored. This could be understood as a threat that as a result Scholler would have exposed himself to a court martial with death threats. This was not just theory, as later statements by officials in the area show: defying the orders of the district leader could be fatal. A gendarmerie officer confirmed as a witness that Scholler had raised concerns.

The victims were brought to the firing range in the west of the camp site at around 8 p.m. on the evening of April 1, 1945, had to lay in armored trenches (armored cover holes) and were shot in the neck . Two victims were killed by the RAD men Dietl and George, another two by Lappe and Obermaier, the wounded man from Heitmann. Obermaier hesitated at first, but then fired under pressure from his superiors. A partisan had previously been seriously injured by Rolf Kutschera with a submachine gun . The perpetrator, from whom the weapon had been removed after this incident, declared this to be an unintended act. The victim was then left helpless in the open and dragged to the shooting site by two other men.

The bodies of the five murdered were buried in two graves at the edge of the firing range. Firewood was placed on a grave.

Victim

The names of the victims are not fully known. One of the murdered was Leo (Lazar) Engelmann, b. September 30, 1914: He fought in the interbrigades in the Spanish Civil War from June 1937 , then joined a British pioneer corps in April 1943, came to the Soviet Union in November 1943 and had been a member of the Styrian Combat Group from mid-1944. Another victim was Ubald Pasetzky, a nineteen (or twenty) year old Graz deserter. The partisan who had already been shot by Kutschera was "Milos" and came from Maribor. Another victim was the son of Mrs. Hermine Farkas, who had joined the partisans as a deserter.

Legal proceedings

accused

The following people stood before the court:

  • the head of the camp Oberfeldmeister Friedrich Scholler (also Schöller), b. December 11, 1910 in Purgstall an der Erlauf , agricultural administrative officer from Göstling an der Ybbs ,
  • Unterfeldmeister Walter Sachse, b. May 17, 1912 in Nauenburg in Thuringia , farm workers from St. Oswald in Freiland,
  • Othmar Heitmann, b. October 11, 1927 in Bruck an der Mur , Treasurer at the Austrian State Railways, from Bruck an der Mur,
  • Egon Obermaier, b. July 30, 1927 in Göß , brewer from Leoben-Göß,
  • Rolf Kutschera (also: Rudolf or Rolf von Kutschera), b. January 3, 1927 in Kulmsee in Poland, interpreter from Graz ,
  • Hans Bacher, b. March 5, 1909 in Laggen , Upper Carinthia, milker from St. Oswald in Freiland,
  • Ferdinand Hoffmann (also: Hofmann), b. June 3, 1911 in Hall in Tirol , gardener from St. Oswald in Freiland, responsible for Atzgersdorf near Vienna.

All of the defendants were innocent (no other judicial proceedings or unsettled sentences).

The client of the act, Hugo Suette (spelling in the judgment, also in a newspaper article: Suetti), could not be prosecuted. Suette was arrested on September 7, 1946 in Vienna (according to another source according to a gendarmerie report: in Upper Bavaria ) and was arrested - too late to be included in the ongoing criminal proceedings against the other perpetrators, but the chairman reported on it during the hearing Transferred to the Wetzelsdorf camp, but was able to flee from there in early November. He was able to go into hiding in Erlangen , where he had studied, and died in 1949. The search for him and judicial inquiries were unsuccessful. Even given the legal situation at the time, his mandate would have been illegal.

The labor service men N. George, N. Lappe and Wenzel Dietl, who were involved in the shootings, were of unknown whereabouts; the verdict indicates that they were persecuted separately. The sources do not address the result of this persecution.

accusation

The indictment of the Graz public prosecutor's office of July 20, 1946 (StA Graz 9 St 562/45) concerned the following crimes:

  • Crimes according to the war crimes law in connection with murder: against Friedrich Scholler, Othmar Heitmann, Walter Sachse and Egon Obermaier.
  • Transgression against the security of life: against Rolf Kutschera.
  • Crimes of torture: against Othmar Heitmann, Egon Obermaier, Walter Sachse, Hans Bacher, Rolf Kutschera, Friedrich Scholler and Ferdinand Hoffmann.

The indictment was based on Section 1 (2) and Section 3 (2) of the War Crimes Act, and also on Sections 5, 34, 134 and 335 of the Austrian Criminal Code at the time.

defender

The lawyers from Graz acted as defense counsel (unless otherwise stated, elected by the defendants)

  • Turek for Othmar Heitmann, Egon Obermaier and Ferdinand Hoffmann,
  • Hero for Walter Sachse ( defender of the poor )
  • Geigler for Hans Bacher and
  • Honest for Friedrich Scholler and Rolf Kutschera (for the latter defender of the poor).

dish

The proceedings were conducted before the People's Court at the Regional Court for Criminal Matters Graz under the file number Vg 1 Vr 276/45. The file of the judgment has the serial number 157, which is sometimes added to the file number after a hyphen.

The court senate consisted of two judges, one of whom presided over, and three lay judges. The presiding judge was Mr. Nestroy, Public Prosecutor Mr. Butschek.

Process flow

The defendants essentially confessed as far as the facts at hand were concerned. Against the allegation that they acted willfully of their own accord, she and her defense lawyers pointed out that they, especially the young people, were exposed to irresistible coercion, which would have been a reason for exclusion from punishment. However, this would only have been the case if the defendants had directly risked their own lives if they had refused. However, the procedure showed that this was not the case.

13 witnesses and one expert were heard during the proceedings .

In the trial, the defendants named Suette's order as the main motive for the acts. However, it was also stated that it would have been possible to refuse to participate in the shootings.

The defendant Bacher testified during interrogation that the mayor of St. Oswald had intervened in vain on behalf of the prisoners. The public prosecutor resigned the indictment against Rolf Kutschera, insofar as it concerned negligent bodily harm, because this criminal act already fell under a liberation amnesty, which resulted in an acquittal in this aspect of the act (according to § 259 Z 2 StPO, the then Austrian Code of Criminal Procedure).

Egon Obermaier was able to make credible in the process that he belonged to the illegal KPÖ and supported anti-fascists.

The perpetrators Scholler, Sachse and Hoffmann were described as fanatical Nazis . According to the testimony of a gendarmerie, the responsible gendarmerie could not have afforded to negotiate with the RAD to prevent the murder of the prisoners. A total of 23 bodies were ultimately found in the area of ​​the municipality of Kloster, which had been murdered on the orders of the district leader Suette. The district leader, born on June 27, 1903, from Graz, was put on the same level by the judge in the negotiation with the Reich Governor and Gauleiter of Styria, Sigfried Uiberreither . Suette was friends with the Gauleiter and is referred to as his "extended arm", both came from the same fraternity ; Suette was also under the protection of Rudolf Hess . Complaints against him, which had certainly been made, had been unsuccessful. He described himself as the “most hated man in the Deutschlandsberg district because of his bloodthirstiness” and finally left Deutschlandsberg only with heavily armed escorts.

judgment

The order of the district leader was seen as an order and a reason to mitigate the penalty. However, the court refused to accept irresistible compulsion to commit the crimes.

For the younger defendants (born in 1927), juvenile criminal law (e.g. Section 11 of the Juvenile Court Act) was to be applied, which provided for milder sentences. The 17-year-old Heitmann and Obermaier (although they had committed murders) were not sentenced to prison, but to strict detention. According to Section 1 (5) of the People's Court Proceedings and Property Forfeiture Act, the sentence could also be reduced for crimes that were threatened with the death penalty or life imprisonment, but not under seven years. This also benefited Heitmann and Obermaier.

At the end of the trial, prison sentences and acquittals were pronounced (in brackets the age in full years on the day of the offense):

  • For Friedrich Scholler (34) and Walter Sachse (32), who had organized the crime, life-long heavy dungeons , aggravated by dark detention on April 1st and quarterly hard camp .
  • For Othmar Heitmann (17) and Egon Obermaier (17), who each killed a partisan, seven years of strict arrest , also exacerbated by dark detention on April 1st.
  • For Rolf Kutschera (18), who was jointly responsible for the torture of the partisan he shot, four years of heavy dungeon, also aggravated by dark custody on April 1st and quarterly hard camp.
  • Hans Bacher (36) and Ferdinand Hoffmann (33) were acquitted, as was Rolf Kutschera of the accusation of deliberately injuring the partisan he shot.

The mother of the partisan Farkas had joined the proceedings with a financial claim, but was referred to civil law for its enforcement .

Since the People's Court was the sole judicial instance, no appeal could be made against the judgment.

  • Judgment of the people's court, penalties and facts (pages 2 to 8)

  • Page 2, Penalty Basis

  • Page 3, penalties

  • Page 4, credits, acquittals, start of justification

  • Page 5, facts

  • Page 6, facts

  • Page 7, beginning of legal considerations

  • Page 8, continued legal considerations

Serving the Sentence, Forbearance and Redemption

The convicted defendants had been in custody for various times, this time up to the verdict (September 26, 1946, 1 p.m.) was counted towards their criminal detention.

The life sentences for Walter Sachse and Friedrich Scholler were in 1952 with a seven-year trial period conditionally checked, this trial period ended on 24 October 1959. The conviction Egon Obermaiers 1953, those Othmar Heitmann's in 1957 and the conviction Rolf Kutschera 1961 repaid .

swell

  • Wolfgang Neugebauer : The Koralm partisans (Kampfgruppe Steiermark) . In: Brigitte Bailer-Galanda (Ed.): Austria 1938–1945 - Documents . Collective folder with deliveries of individual contributions by subscription. Archive publishing house. Vienna, since 2006. This source has no page numbers because it is a cover sheet with a slipcase. This includes u. a. following document 4.
  • Excerpt from the judgment of the People's Court at the Regional Court for Criminal Matters Graz against Othmar Heitmann from Bruck / Mur and six other defendants for crimes according to Section 1 (2) of the War Crimes Act and other offenses , September 26, 1946, file number Vg 1 Vr 276/45, with reference to the source : Vienna, DÖW 21 829/10. (DÖW = Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Name after: Claudia Kuretsidis-Haider: Death sentences and life sentences of the people's courts 1946, section September 1946 . Postwar Justice Research Center (at nachkriegsjustiz.at , accessed March 27, 2015).
  2. ↑ a b H (enning) Volkmar (pseudonym for Hugo Suette): Lower Styria, the German Southeast Mark. Verlag Sima Deutschlandsberg 1934
    On the name “H. Volkmar ”as a pseudonym of Hugo Suette see footnote 4 of this document . (accessed March 29, 2015).
    Hugo Suette: The national fight in southern Styria. 1867 to 1897. In the series: Publications by the Institute for Research on German Ethnicity in the South and Southeast in Munich and the Institute for East Bavarian Local History Research in Passau. Edited by Fritz Machatschek and M. Herwieser. Inaugural dissertation in the winter semester 1935/36 at the philosophical faculty of the University of Erlangen . ZDB -ID 143846-3 No. 12. Verlag Max Schick Munich 1936.
  3. ↑ a b c d Memento Mori - the "other" graves at the Deutschlandsberg city cemetery. In: Weststeirische Rundschau. No. 43, volume 2016 (October 28, 2016). 89th year. P. 3.
  4. ^ Volkmar: Lower Styria. P. 44.
  5. ^ Volkmar: Lower Styria. Pp. 18-21.
  6. ↑ Correspondence about the memorandum of the Southeast German Institute in Graz "The southern border of Styria" (accessed March 29, 2015). Federal Archives Koblenz , estate of Dr. Arthur Seyss-Inquart Volume 23.
  7. ^ Volkmar: Lower Styria. P. 39.
  8. ↑ a b c d Neugebauer: Koralmpartisanen.
  9. ^ Johann Scheichenberger: The Koralm Partisan. In: Charlotte Rombach: Resistance and Liberation 1934–1945: Contemporary witnesses report. On the occasion of the 65th return of Austria's liberation from fascism, eleven communist resistance fighters tell in their memories of their struggle against fascism and for an independent Austria. 3rd edition Vienna 2010. ISBN 978-3-200-02072-6 . P. 34.
  10. ↑ Christian Fleck: Koralmpartisanen - About different careers of politically motivated resistance fighters. Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Historical Social Science, materials on historical social science Volume 4. Verlag Böhlau. Vienna-Cologne 1986. ISBN 3-205-07078-X ZDB -ID 252137-4 . Pp. 76 and 293.
  11. ^ Christian Konrad. “In the struggle, you had equal rights…”: The armed resistance against National Socialism in Carinthia and Styria from a gender -historical perspective: Diploma thesis at the Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, Institute for History. Graz 2010. Pages 13–15, 24.
  12. ↑ Fights in the Eibiswald area , (accessed March 29, 2015).
  13. ↑ Herbert Blatnik: Contemporary witnesses remember the years 1938–1945 in Southwest Styria. 3rd edition 2010. Lerchhaus Verlag Eibiswald. ISBN 3-901463-08-9 . Pp. 242-243.
  14. ^ Scheichenberger: Koralm Partisan. P. 33.
  15. ^ Walter Wachs: Combat group Styria. In the series: Monographs on Contemporary History. Series of publications from the Documentation Archive of Austrian Resistance. Europa Verlag Vienna-Frankfurt-Zurich. 1968. p. 15.
  16. ^ Scheichenberger: Koralm Partisan. Pp. 30-37.
  17. ↑ a b Scheichenberger: Koralm Partisan. P. 31.
  18. ^ Wax: Combat Group . P. 7.
  19. ^ A b Wolfgang Neugebauer: Armed Resistance - Resistance in the Military. An overview. In: Christine Schindler: Focus: Armed Resistance - Resistance in the Military. Documentation archive of the Austrian resistance. Yearbook 2009. ISSN  1012-4535 , ZDB -ID 620800-9 . Lit-Verlag Vienna-Berlin 2009. ISBN 978-3-643-50010-6 . Pp. 15-16.
  20. ↑ Fleck: Koralm partisans. Pp. 34-35.
  21. ^ Wax: Combat Group . P. 9.
  22. ^ Wax: Combat Group . P. 10.
  23. ↑ Fleck: Koralm partisans. P. 25.
  24. ^ Wax: Combat Group. Pp. 5-7.
  25. ↑ Helmut-Theobald Müller (ed.), Gernot Peter Obersteiner (overall scientific management): History and topography of the Deutschlandsberg district. ("District topography"). First volume: general part. Graz-Deutschlandsberg 2005. ISBN 3-901938-15-X . Styrian Provincial Archives and District Authority Deutschlandsberg 2005. In the series: Great historical regional studies of Styria. Founded by Fritz Posch †. Volume 3. ZDB ID 568794-9 . Pp. 198-199.
  26. ^ Wax: Combat Group . P. 33.
  27. ↑ Blatnik: contemporary witnesses. P. 397.
  28. ↑ Fleck: Koralm partisans. Pp. 135-139.
  29. ^ Gerhard Fischer: Osterwitz. a miraculous place in the high pürg. Life, joy and suffering of an area and its inhabitants. Osterwitz 2002. Editor and publisher: Osterwitz community. Production: Simadruck Aigner & Weisi, Deutschlandsberg. Pp. 427, 420-421. Members of the Plank family were employed in the area as foresters, hunters, etc.
  30. ↑ Fleck: Koralm partisans. P. 308, footnote 33.
  31. ↑ Fleck: Koralm partisans . Pp. 81-97, 112-114.
  32. ^ Willibald Ingo Holzer: The Austrian battalions in the association of the NOV i POJ .: the combat group Avantgarde / Styria; the partisan group Leoben-Donawitz; the Communist Party of Austria in militant political resistance. Dissertation at the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Vienna 1972. Volume I, p. 202. (NOV i POJ: Narodnooslobodilačka vojska i partizanski odredi Jugoslavije = People's Liberation Army and Partisan Associations of Yugoslavia).
  33. ↑ a b c Ordinance on the establishment of standing courts of February 15, 1945. German Reich Law Gazette (dRGBl) of February 20, 1945, Part I No. 6. p. 30.
  34. ^ Müller, Obersteiner: District topography. P. 199.
  35. ↑ Willibald Ingo Holzer: Using the example of the combat group Avantgarde / Styria (1944–1945). On the genesis and shape of the Leninist-Maoist guerrilla doctrine and its chances of realization in Austria. In: Gerhard Botz , Hans Hautmann , Helmut Konrad and Josef Weidenholzer (eds.): Movement and Class: Studies on Austrian Workers' History. 10 years Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for the History of the Labor Movement. Publication by the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for the History of the Labor Movement. Europaverlag Vienna-Munich-Zurich 1978. ISBN 3-203-50693-9 . Pp. 414-415.
  36. ↑ Blatnik: contemporary witnesses. Pp. 121-122.
  37. ↑ Back then². Old photographs from the Deutschlandsberg district. Volume 2. Verlag Aigner and Weisi, Deutschlandsberg 1995. P. 50.
    Damals³. Old photographs from the Deutschlandsberg district. Volume 3. Verlag Aigner and Weisi, Deutschlandsberg 2004. P. 52.
    Blatnik: Zeitzeugen. P. 121.
  38. ↑ Blatnik: contemporary witnesses. P. 82.
  39. ↑ Steirerblatt, September 24, 1946, p. 3.
  40. ↑ Blatnik: contemporary witnesses. P. 492.
  41. ↑ Blatnik: contemporary witnesses. P. 122.
  42. ^ Wax: Combat Group . P. 17.
  43. ↑ Holzer: Austrian battalions. P. 203.
  44. ^ Chronicle of the Osterwitz volunteer fire brigade with memories of the mayor (accessed March 28, 2015).
  45. ↑ Blatnik: contemporary witnesses. Pp. 242-245.
  46. ↑ Fleck: Koralm partisans. P. 141.
  47. ↑ Fleck: Koralm partisans. Pp. 129-131.
  48. ↑ For years, personal messages from older members of the community refer to this point independently of one another, bomb craters are still recognizable in the area, the digital terrain elevation model in GIS-Styria also shows them.
  49. ↑ Fleck: Koralm partisans. P. 303 footnote 2.
  50. ↑ Blatnik: contemporary witnesses. Pp. 402-405.
  51. ↑ a b Blatnik: contemporary witnesses. P. 123.
  52. ↑ New times . Leykam, Graz. September 24, 1946. p. 3.
  53. ↑ a b c d e f The bloody Easter Sunday on the Koralpe. In: The Steirerblatt. Daily newspaper of the Austrian People's Party. Graz September 24, 1946. p. 3.
  54. ↑ a b c d e f g The partisan murder on the Koralpe. District leader Suette arrested in Bavaria. In: Weststeirische Rundschau. No. 39, born in 1946 (September 28, 1946). 20th year. ZDB -ID 2303595-X p. 1. The detailed report announced there for the following number did not appear and could not be found in the subsequent numbers either.
  55. ^ A b Karl Marschall: People's jurisdiction and prosecution of National Socialist violent crimes in Austria: a documentation. Edited by the Federal Ministry of Justice. 1. On. Vienna 1977, pp. 89-91, 2nd edition 1987. pp. 86-87.
  56. ^ Müller, Obersteiner: District topography. P. 198 with reference to the unpublished Gendarmerie district chronicle for the red-white-red book . Documentation archive of the Austrian resistance, DÖW 8340-8345 (district topography pp. 205–206, footnotes 38 and for source 16).
  57. ↑ a b c Steirerblatt . September 25, 1946. p. 3.
  58. ↑ a b c People's Court: judgment. P. 6 (see picture). The shooting range was not the sports field in the east of the camp on the road to Klosterwinkel and Sallegg.
  59. ↑ Example of the remains of an armored trench (queried November 13, 2014).
  60. ↑ a b c d New Era . September 24, 1946. p. 3.
  61. ↑ a b The truth . September 24 and 25, 1946, pp. 2 and 3 respectively.
  62. ↑ a b Documentation archive of the Austrian resistance: Austrians for Spain's freedom 1936-1939. Biographies.
  63. ↑ According to another source : first name Leopold, month of birth October.
  64. ^ Description of the monument for the Austrian fighters in Spain. 1110 Vienna, Zentralfriedhof Tor 2 Gruppe 28, Row 42, unveiled November 1, 1995 (accessed March 29, 2015).
  65. ^ Wax: Combat Group . Pp. 34, 53-54.
  66. ^ Wax: Combat Group . Pp. 34, 54.
  67. ↑ Fleck: Koralm partisans. P. 302 footnote 28. Pasetzky is also included in a list of Carinthian victims of National Socialism: National Socialism in Villach , list of victims p. 174. (accessed March 29, 2015).
  68. ↑ a b c d People's Court: Judgment. P. 1 (see picture).
  69. ↑ The spelling of names in several of the defendants in the sources differs from that in the court record.
  70. ↑ a b c New Era . September 25, 1946. p. 3.
  71. ↑ Research Center for Post-War Justice Personal details (accessed April 1, 2015).
  72. ↑ People's Court: Judgment. P. 1 (see picture). The age indications according to years of life differ in the sources, depending on how long ago the crime was at the time the source was created.
  73. ↑ People's Court: Judgment. P. 2 (see picture).
  74. ↑ Holzer: Austrian battalions . Pp. 222-223.
  75. ↑ People's Court: Judgment. P. 5 (see picture).
  76. ↑ The truth . November 9, 1946, p. 3.
  77. ↑ a b c Martin F. Polaschek: In the name of the Republic of Austria! The People's Courts in Styria 1945 to 1955. Publications from the Styrian Provincial Archives. ISSN  0434-3891 ZDB -ID 561078-3 . Volume 23. Graz 1998. ISBN 3-901938-01-X S. 160. (accessed March 29, 2015).
  78. ↑ Fleck: Koralm partisans. P. 305, footnote 33.
  79. ↑ West Styrian Rundschau. No. 46, born in 1946 (November 16, 1946). P. 1.
  80. ^ Müller, Obersteiner: District topography. P. 206 footnote 45.
  81. ↑ Martin F. Polaschek : In the name of the Republic of Austria! The people's courts in Styria 1945 to 1955: Chap. 5.5. Nazi violent crime p. 160, footnote 514 with reference to: State Police Fahndungsblatt December 2, 1946, 108; Proceedings Regional Court for Criminal Matters Graz Vr 1499/49.
  82. ↑ Fleck: Koralm partisans. P. 303 footnote 6.
  83. ↑ unknown first name, noun nescio .
  84. ↑ Fleck: Koralm partisans. Pp. 162, 306.
  85. ↑ The truth. Organ of the Communist Party for Styria. September 24, 1946, ZDB -ID 1318930-x p. 2.
  86. ↑ StGBl. No. 32/1945 : Constitutional Act of June 26, 1945 on War Crimes and Other National Socialist Atrocities (War Crimes Act), KVG. ISSN  0007-5906 ZDB -ID 2771194-8 . P. 55–57 (accessed March 30, 2015): The act was classified as a war crime according to Section 1 (2) KVG, Section 3 documented torture and mistreatment with severe imprisonment up to the death penalty.
  87. ↑ old Austrian Criminal Code 1852, StG : § 5 - definition of complicit and involved parties, § 34 - coincidence of several crimes, § 134 - murder, § 335 - offenses and violations against the security of life.
  88. ↑ Steirerblatt. September 26, 1946. p. 3.
  89. ↑ a b People's Court: judgment. P. 8 (see picture).
  90. ↑ a b c People's Court: judgment. P. 4 (see picture).
  91. ↑ Fleck: Koralm partisans. P. 302 footnote 7.
  92. ↑ Hans Schafranek, Herbert Blatnik [Ed.]: From the Nazi ban to the “Anschluss”. Styrian National Socialists 1933–1938. Czernin-Verlag, Vienna 2015. ISBN 978-3-7076-0554-9 . P. 522.
  93. ↑ New times . September 27, 1946. p. 3.
  94. ↑ Blatnik: contemporary witnesses. P. 38.
  95. ↑ Fleck: Koralm partisans . P. 139.
  96. ↑ Neue Zeit, September 27, p. 3.
  97. ↑ The truth. Organ of the Communist Party for Styria. September 24, 1946, pp. 2, 3; September 25, 1946, pp. 2, 3; September 26, 1946, pp. 2, 3; September 27, 1946, p. 3.
  98. ↑ Wolfgang Muchitsch: The People's Court Graz 1946–1955. In: Siegfried Beer: The "British" Styria: 1945–1955. Research on the historical regional studies of Styria, Volume 38. Historical regional commission for Styria. ZDB -ID 501108-5 , Graz 1995. ISBN 3-901251-09-X . P. 152.
  99. ↑ Steirerblatt. September 27, 1946. p. 4.
  100. ↑ StGBl. No. 177/1945 : People's Court Proceedings and Property Forfeiture Act , p. 269 (accessed March 30, 2015).
  101. ↑ a b c People's Court: judgment. P. 3 (see picture).
  102. ↑ Second degree of prison sentence: In this type, the convict was stopped with iron on his feet. He was only allowed to talk to people who were not directly related to his custody in very special and important cases.
  103. ↑ Section 23 of the Criminal Code: "lonely cordon in a dark cell" .
  104. ↑ Claudia Kuretsidis-Haider: Section on People's Courts and their Proceedings of the Post-War Justice Research Center. (accessed March 28, 2015).