Johann Fröhlich (resistance fighter)

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Johann Fröhlich , also Hans Fröhlich (born November 21, 1911 ; died July 15, 1934 in Kaltenleutzüge ) was an Austrian worker and resistance fighter against Austrofascism . He was one of the February fighters and was shot on the Predigtstuhlwiese during a rally.

Life and honor

Fröhlich was active with the Kinderfreunde , then with the socialist youth workers and the military athletes . He lived at Grenzgasse 26 (today Ketzergasse) in Liesing. On July 15, 1934, there was an unauthorized socialist rally on the Predigtstuhlwiese to commemorate the fire in the Justice Palace seven years earlier. “At the head of the meeting were young people from Liesingen with red flags and they sang: Immortal victims, you sank. “During Rosa Jochmann's speech , fascist protection corps men and gendarmes emerged from the forest with their rifles at the ready. The revolutionary socialist Richard Lehmann raised the red flag, a shot went off and he fell to the ground, fatally hit by a heartbeat. Lehmann's best friend was Fröhlich, wanted to raise the flag and was immediately shot as well. He was shot in the stomach and died shortly afterwards. A third young Liesinger, Karl Reitmayer , was seriously injured by a grazing shot in the neck and bayonet stabs and was taken to the Mödling hospital. There are various statements about his fate. At the time of his death, Fröhlich, like Lehmann, had already been unemployed for some time.

On July 18, 1934, Fröhlich and Lehmann were buried in the Liesingen cemetery . “The gendarmerie drew a thick cordon around the cemetery wall and positioned two machine guns in front of the cemetery gate. In the cemetery itself, behind gravestones and bushes, there were gendarmes with rifles ready to fire. ”The shooting of Fröhlich and Lehmann led to the radicalization of two other opponents of Austrofascism:

“We cannot just stand idly by this murder of two youth functionaries. It is important to strike back, to set signals, to intensify the fight against the fascist murderers, to lead it harder, more consistently than before "

- Josef Gerl : Quoted from Josef Hindels : This is how a young socialist died. Josef Gerl: executed on July 24, 1934 , p. 17f.

Gerl and his friend Rudolf Anzböck then carried out an explosive attack on a signal system on the Danube Bank Railway on July 20, 1934 , which caused only minor damage. On the run, however, Gerl shot the police officer Ferdinand Forster, who was seriously injured. Gerl and Anzböck were sentenced to death on the 24th. Anzböck was pardoned, while Gerl was hanged on the choke barrels that same evening . Forstner succumbed to his serious injuries on August 10, 1934.

Commemoration

Street sign in Vienna-Liesing

Fröhlich's name is engraved on a memorial for the Liesingen freedom fighters against Austrofascism and the Nazi regime at the Atzgersdorfer Friedhof . On 7 February 1955, the Vienna City Council Committee on Culture decided that Lies Inger street in Vienna XXIII commemorating Johann Fröhlich in Fröhlichgasse rename. On October 2, 2004, the freedom fighters from Liesing and Mödling placed a memorial stone for Johann Fröhlich and Richard Lehmann near the crime scene .

Literature and web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rudolfine Muhr: We had no experience with underground work .
  2. ↑ Josef Fiala: The February battles in Vienna, Meidling and Liesing: A civil war that wasn't one , Diplomica Verlag 2012, p. 163.
personal data
SURNAME Happy, Johann
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Happy, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian workers and resistance fighters against Austrofascism
DATE OF BIRTH November 21, 1911
DATE OF DEATH July 15, 1934
Place of death Give cold people