Hans Piesch

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Hans Piesch (born June 15, 1889 in Bielitz , Silesia , † March 3, 1966 in Krumpendorf ) was an Austrian politician. From 1945 to 1947 he was the first provincial governor of Carinthia after the Second World War.

Hans Piesch was a teacher of Silesian origin, in his home country he graduated from a Protestant teacher training institute in 1908. He then moved to Carinthia, where he was employed as a primary school teacher in Feistritz an der Gail and in Gmünd . From 1922 he was based in Villach , where he first worked as a secondary school teacher and later as a school director. As a member of the SPÖ , he was elected mayor of Villach in 1933.

In February 1934 civil war-like clashes broke out in Austria (see February Uprising ), as a result of which the social democratic party was banned and its key functionaries were arrested or executed. Piesch was briefly imprisoned and deposed as mayor.

After Austria was annexed to the German Reich, Piesch joined the NSDAP and worked in the race and settlement office in the Villach district.

A few days before the end of the Second World War, representatives of the resistance movement and the political parties of Carinthia formed a "Provisional Executive Committee" which agreed on May 6, 1945 on the composition of a provisional state government to be headed by Hans Piesch. The next day, the Carinthian Nazi Gauleiter Friedrich Rainer announced his resignation and the provisional government with Governor Piesch was constituted. However, after only one month it was transformed into a so-called consultative state committee with only limited powers. On July 24, 1945, the head of the British military government in Carinthia appointed Hans Piesch as governor. The then newly formed “Regional Consultative Committee” included representatives of the SPÖ , ÖVP , KPÖ and the Carinthian Slovenes . Shortly afterwards, on July 27th, a provisional state government was formed again under Governor Piesch.

On November 25, 1945, the SPÖ won the first Carinthian state elections after the war. The first state parliament consisted of 18 MPs from the SPÖ, 14 from the ÖVP, three from the KPÖ and one from the Democratic Party of Austria and was constituted on December 10, 1945 with its first session, at which Hans Piesch was elected governor. He only held this office for a little more than a year:

“Since he did not want to jeopardize the success of the Austrian State Treaty negotiations in London because of the Nazi past he was accused of , he personally took action on the advice of his party friends and resigned in April 1947. After that he was head of the regional traffic office for Carinthia. Under his administration, tourism started the great growth that has made it one of the most important branches of the Carinthian economy ”.
His successor was Ferdinand Wedenig (SPÖ).

Subsequently, he was head of the Villach Tourist Office until his retirement in 1954. Hans Piesch died "after a long, difficult, patiently endured suffering on March 3, 1966" in Krumpendorf am Wörthersee , he was buried in the Villach forest cemetery. In the Maria Gail district , Hans-Piesch-Straße reminds of him, in his last place of residence Krumpendorf the Hans-Piesch-Park.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Book "Der Landeshauptmann von Kärnten" by Evelyne Webernig, page 94, published by the publishing house of the Kärntner Landesarchiv 1987, ISBN 3-900531-18-8
2. ^ Obituary in "People's newspaper Kärnten" No. 53 of March 6, 1966, page 11, bottom