Hermann Plackholm

Hermann Plackholm ( October 2, 1904 in Vienna - October 31, 1944 there ) was an Austrian firefighter and resistance fighter against National Socialism . He was shot in a public execution at the Kagran firing range in front of around 600 other firefighters by the Nazi regime .

Life

Plackholm grew up in a socialist environment. In 1927 the trained Taschner joined the fire brigade of the City of Vienna and worked there as a telegraph operator. In 1933 he joined the KPÖ . In 1942 he was the main sergeant at the Speising fire station. The Gaupersonalamt der NSDAP, Gauleitung Wien, noted on December 18, 1942, on the occasion of a political review of Plackholm: "His overall behavior suggests that he has not yet broken away from his earlier Marxist worldview." , Plackholm and his wife Maria were arrested by the Gestapo . According to the daily report of the Gestapo Vienna (No. 3 from February 5-8, 1943), he had been in contact with leading functionaries of the KPÖ since 1941, was most recently part of the Vienna city administration as a "sector leader" and was involved in the production of communist leaflets. In the following months over 50 firefighters were arrested, the last arrests were in January 1944. All of them were charged with collecting or paying support contributions for relatives of political prisoners in order to support the Austrian Red Aid , and some were also charged with passing on communist pamphlets .

Show trial

As of autumn 1939, the fire brigade was part of the force of order as a fire protection police. Therefore, jurisdiction lay with the Supreme SS and Police Court in Munich. There, over fifty Viennese firefighters were reported, charged and finally almost all found guilty in an almost two-week trial in Vienna (from March 13-25, 1944) for “preparation for high treason” and “treason”. The resistance fighter Josef Schwaiger committed suicide during the trial. 41 firefighters received life sentences or several years in prison. Plackholm, as well as his professional colleagues Franz Pascher , Johann Perthold , Oskar Schlaf and Johann Zak were sentenced to death .

After the verdict, the firefighters were sent to Mauthausen concentration camp . From there, Plackholm was transferred back to Vienna on October 27, 1944, together with the other people sentenced to death. However, only he and Johann Zak were actually executed. The three other convicts were given notice of their pardon for life imprisonment following the shooting of the two .

Farewell letters

On October 30, 1944, Plackholm wrote several farewell letters - to his wife Maria, his mother, his mother-in-law and his sister-in-law (with an addition for his little niece Eva).

Execution at the Kagran shooting range

Memorial stone at the Kagran shooting range

At the Kagran military firing range, numerous executions were carried out by shooting between 1940 and 1945 . Since then, it has been considered one of the most important places of execution in Vienna . The exact number of those executed cannot be determined exactly, but it is now assumed that there are at least 129 people. Mainly members of the German armed forces were executed here , the reasons being " decomposition of the armed forces ", desertion and so on.

The execution of five firefighters from Vienna who had been convicted of “preparation for high treason ” and “ favoring the enemy ”, ordered for October 31, 1944, was intended as a special deterrent . Apart from the firefighters, who were on standby in their offices, all other Viennese firefighters had to compete in uniform on the firing range. Special tram trains were organized to transport them. Failure to show up or appearing late was a criminal offense. The first two firefighters, Hermann Plackholm and Johann Zak, who were tied to stakes, were shot in front of the comrades . The other three condemned to death - Franz Pascher , Johann Perthold and Oskar Schlaf - were informed of their pardon and imprisonment for life . They were taken back to the Mauthausen concentration camp , where they had been waiting to be executed.

“The three of us were pardoned for life by the death penalty u. had to kill the other two genes. be present as a deterrent example [example]. In the early morning we were tied up again and, under brutal treatment, we were taken to the execution site at the Kagran shooting range by push carts. Before we even got there, we said goodbye to the two comrades condemned to death. Left the push cart and without leading us each went to his stake, where we were tied from chest to foot with ropes. In front of us stood 600 men of the WBF, who were ordered as a deterrent example. After reading out the judgment again, the two Gen. [Plackholm and Zak] drew circles in the region of the heart with chalk, put the bandages in front of the eyes, which they refused, a short order and we had two good, wonderful genes. lost, but which will always live on in our spirit. "

- Johann Perthold : Report of the execution of Plackholms and Zaks, undated

Plackholm's wife Maria was also in custody at the time of her husband's shooting, and there were no grounds for arrest and detention. She was only released after Austria's liberation from the Nazi regime.

Commemoration

Memorial stone at the central fire station Am Hof, Vienna Inner City

Since 1947, the memorial for the firefighters murdered by fascism at the Vienna fire station Am Hof ​​has been commemorating the resistance fighter against Austrofascism Georg Weissel and five victims of the Nazi justice system , the communists Ludwig Ebhart , Josef Schwaiger , Rudolf Haider , Hermann Plackholm and Johann Zak . The memorial was designed by Mario Petrucci and shows a decapitated firefighter with his head in his right arm.

In 1988 a street in Vienna- Aspern was named after the executed man, Hermann-Plackholm-Gasse .

Literature and internet sources

• Documentation archive of the Austrian Resistance : Searching for traces: Hermann Plackholm (1904-1944), with identification recordings from the Gestapo Vienna, accessed on March 17, 2015
• Peter Autengruber : Lexicon of Viennese street names. Meaning, origin, background information, previous designation (s). Vienna: Pichler-Verlag, 9th edition 2014, p. 131
• Herbert Exenberger , Heinz Riedel: Kagran military shooting range , Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance (DÖW), Vienna, 2003, ISBN 3-901142-49-5 .
• Wolfgang Neugebauer : Resistance and Persecution in Vienna, 1934-1945. A documentation. Volume 1, Österreichischer Bundesverlag, 1984 p. 314 [1] .

Web links

• Post-war justice , Via the memorial stone at the fire station
• Antifascist monuments and memorials. In: dasrotewien.at - Web dictionary of the Viennese social democracy. SPÖ Vienna (Ed.)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hermann-Plackholm-Gasse in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna