Hans Arko
Hans Arko (born February 8, 1888 in Gottschee ; † June 13, 1953 in Klagenfurt ) was a Gottscheer lawyer and politician . His role as the political representative of the German-speaking ethnic group of the Gottscheers in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was important .
Life
Hans Arko was born in 1888 as the son of the savings bank official and property owner Hans Arko in the city of Gottschee, where he also attended elementary school and high school. He then studied law at the University of Graz and was awarded a Dr. jur. PhD. During his studies in 1906 he became a member of the Carniola Graz fraternity .
In 1914 Arko married Erna Stöckl, the daughter of the director of the Trifail coal mines. In 1918 he opened a law firm in the city of Gottschee. Since he hardly spoke Slovenian, he prepared to move to Klagenfurt after the founding of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes , but then decided to stay in Yugoslavia. Here he was able to acquire the knowledge of Slovene required to practice as a lawyer. Arko soon took over the position of choirmaster of the Gottscheer choir. In addition, he was politically active as a representative of the interests of the German ethnic group of Gottscheers. Together with the priest Josef Eppich , he led the Gottscheer Peasant Party and worked as its chairman in the main committee of the German party in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. In 1927 Hans Arko was elected as Josef Eppich's deputy in the area committee (Slovenian state parliament) in the area elections for the Gottscheer district. In 1929, however, King Alexander I suspended the constitution and dissolved parliament and the regional parliaments. Likewise, all parties that represented a nationality were banned. Arko later worked, again with Josef Eppich, in the Swabian-German Cultural Association , which was re-approved in 1931 .
Together with Eppich, who was in contact with representatives of the Carinthian Slovenes , Arko tried to make concessions to the minorities in Yugoslavia and Austria on the basis of reciprocity. On August 18, 1937, representatives of the Carinthian Slovenes and Gottscheers agreed on principles for the treatment of minorities in Carinthia and the Drau-Banovina. Thereupon the Gottscheer Hans Arko, Canon Ferdinand Erker and Josef Eppich sent a memorandum to Prime Minister Milan Stojadinović on August 28, 1937 , in which they called on the government to stop the attacks on the minority in the cultural, economic and political area as well as Gottscheer officials, in particular Teacher to hire. However, these efforts went largely unanswered.
After the attack by the German Wehrmacht on Yugoslavia in 1941, around 20 Gottscheer leaders, including Arko and Richard Lackner , were initially deported to Möttling as hostages by the Yugoslav gendarmerie on April 6 , but units of the newly founded Independent State of Croatia had already blocked the border so that the hostages were released on April 9th. Unlike his former political companion Eppich, Arko took part in the evacuation of the Gottscheers by the National Socialists and opened a law firm in Rann (Brežice) at the end of 1941 . At the end of the war, in May 1945, he managed to escape to Austria, where he moved in with his mother-in-law Stöckl in Klagenfurt. In the following months, the apartment was the point of contact for Gottscheer refugees and those released from the Yugoslavian camps in Sterntal und Tüuchten .
In 1949 Arko became an Austrian citizen and opened a law firm in Völkermarkt . In June 1953 he died in Klagenfurt at the age of 65.
family
With his wife Erna geb. Stöckl had two sons, Arko, who both became lawyers. While the older son Roland took over his father's law firm in Völkermarkt, the younger Giselher opened a law firm in Klagenfurt.
literature
- Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I Politicians, Part 1: A – E. Heidelberg 1996, pp. 25-26.
- Hans Hermann Frensing: The resettlement of the Gottscheer Germans. Oldenbourg, Munich 1970. 180 pages.
Web links
- Gottscheer personalities: Dr. Hans Arko. (PDF; 1.3 MB) Gottscheer Zeitung January 2007, p. 11.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Frensing 1970, p. 11
- ↑ Frensing, 1970, 19
- ^ Richard Lackner in http://www.gottschee.de/forum/messages/209.html
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Arko, Hans |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Austrian lawyer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 8, 1888 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Gottschee , Austria-Hungary |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 13, 1953 |
| Place of death | Klagenfurt |