Hans Braxenthaler

Hans Braxenthaler , commonly known as Brax Hans (* July 8, 1893 in Thannsberg, Fridolfing municipality ; † August 7, 1937 in Mitterbichl , Hochberg municipality ) was a Bavarian trade unionist and communist resister against the Nazi regime , who was driven to suicide in 1937.

Life

Hans Braxenthaler was the son of the single farmer's daughter Klara Braxenthaler from Thannsberg. He came to the front in the First World War in February 1915 and thus became a staunch opponent. After the war Braxenthaler worked as a construction worker. In 1919 he joined the USPD in Traunstein , and one year later the newly founded local group of the KPD . He was active as a trade unionist , for example as chairman of the construction workers' association in the Traunstein district and as chairman of the free trade unions in Traunstein. Since 1925 was also in a leading position with the Communist Party, so as political leader (pole leader) of the local group Traunstein and the KPD sub-district of Traunstein. Together with Gregor Kersche , the agricultural expert of the KPÖ , he agitated in 1929 on small farms in Carinthia and Upper Styria , where he was arrested and deported. In 1929 he was also elected to the city council of Traunstein and ran for the Reichstag in 1930 and for the Bavarian state parliament in 1932. Because of the "Reichenhaller Saalschlacht" in the Hotel Deutscher Kaiser in Bad Reichenhall on March 6, 1930, he was brought to court as a "ringleader". In 1931 he teamed up with 25 farmers from the districts of Traunstein, Rosenheim and Mühldorf to travel to the Soviet Union for study purposes .

After the National Socialists seized power , he was arrested on March 3, 1933, taken to Traunstein prison and a short time later sent to the newly built Dachau concentration camp , where he was severely abused. His first wife Maria was also imprisoned for a year. Braxenthaler was released in March 1934, but arrested again three weeks later and, on April 9, deported to Dachau again for almost a year. He was not released until the beginning of March 1935. In February 1937 he fled to Czechoslovakia , but returned penniless to Traunstein in July 1937 to organize papers for himself. He last hid on the Hochberg with the Löffler farmers in Mitterbichl. On August 7, 1937, shortly after five in the morning, Hans Braxenthaler shot himself when he was arrested by Gestapo officials.

literature

• Driven to death by the Gestapo , Chiemgau-Blätter 31/2017 of August 5, 2017
• Biographies: Johann Braxenthaler, commonly known as Brax Hans on kz-verband-salzburg.at
• Hartmut Mehringer: The KPD in Bavaria 1919-1945. In: Bavaria in the Nazi era, Vol. V. Munich, 1983.
• Barry McLoughlin, Hannes Leidinger, Verena Moritz: Communism in Austria 1918–1938. StudienVerlag, Innsbruck, Vienna, 2009

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Mehringer, p. 207.
2. ↑ Barry McLoughlin et al. a., p. 270.
3. ^ Lilla: The Bavarian State Parliament 1918/19 to 1933 , p. 89.