Johann Langer (lawyer)

Johann Langer ( July 2, 1878 in Neuhaus , Bohemia - October 12, 1938 in Dachau Concentration Camp ) was an Austrian lawyer , judge at the Salzburg Regional Court and a victim of National Socialism .

Life

Langer was a lawyer and officer in the Austro-Hungarian army . In 1906 he married Johanna, whose maiden name is not known. The couple had three daughters, Elisabeth, Hertha and Martha, who were all born in Vienna. In 1920 the family moved to Salzburg, where they were also entitled to live there and moved into an apartment on the first floor of the so-called Faberhaus at Rainerstraße 4 in Salzburg's Andrä district .

Langer initially worked as an official in the Salzburg state government and was then appointed as a judge at the Salzburg Regional Court. During the dictatorship of the corporate state , he was a functionary of the Fatherland Front , he held the professional title of higher regional judge and acted as chairman of the Senate of Department 6, the specialist department for political criminal matters, which had been newly established in February 1934. His area of activity included crimes against the Guns and Explosives Act and the Criminal Code , such as bomb attacks , resistance to state authority , high treason or disruption of the practice of religion . It can be seen from the trial files that Langer acted as chairman of jury and lay judges' senates in larger proceedings, but as a single judge in “accelerated and simplified criminal proceedings”. In the years 1934 to 1938, predominantly terrorist attacks were negotiated that were carried out by German and Austrian National Socialists in the state of Salzburg and which - according to the historian Gert Kerschbaumer - “were considered to be detrimental to the economy and tourism, which is why the Austrian press was allowed to report little or nothing about them . ". Membership in the NSDAP was illegal and a criminal offense after the assassination of Chancellor Dollfuss in Austria. The Nazis carried out terrorist attacks against the Archbishop's Palace and against Leopoldskron Castle , which was owned by Max Reinhardt , against the Jewish clothing store Ornstein in Getreidegasse , the Chiemseehof and the Festspielhaus , against inns and hotels, the tax office and against telegraph, Electricity and railway systems. For the most part, the Nazi attackers were able to flee across the nearby state border into the German Reich and thus evade police prosecution and criminal responsibility. For example, the bomb explosion of July 11, 1934 in the Mülln district, in which passer-by Hermine Graupner suffered fatal burns, went unpunished.

The political cases were assigned to the chairman of the Senate by Albert Rechfeld, the head of the public prosecutor's office. Rechfeld was also a functionary of the Fatherland Front ; until March 12, 1938, he was a member of the State Council of the Dollfuss and Schuschnigg dictatorship. Assassins who were accused by Rechfeld had to expect severe punishment, especially when human life was at risk. Two Salzburg National Socialists who carried out an attack on the Sacred Heart Monastery in Liefering on May 19, 1934 , received prison sentences of eight and twelve years respectively, but were pardoned and released in 1937. The criminal trial against the perpetrators of the Lamprechtshausen Nazi putsch of July 1934 was and is wrongly ascribed to Langer's responsibility, but it took place before the 6th Senate of the Military Court in Linz.

Registration card of Johann Langer as a prisoner in the National Socialist concentration camp Dachau

After the annexation of Austria , the National Socialists took hard reckoning with their opponents. Judge Langer and Public Prosecutor Rechfeld were "removed from duty" in March 1938, " taken into protective custody" by the Gestapo and deported to the Dachau concentration camp . There they were registered on April 8, 1938 under the numbers 13937 and 13938. On October 7, 1938, Johann Langer wrote to his wife:

"Please comfort yourself, my Hanni, about the continuation of the separation. I always think about you. Warm greetings and kisses ... Hans. "

Five days later, the 60-year-old lawyer committed suicide. After the liberation of Austria, a surviving concentration camp inmate reported, according to Kerschbaumer, that Langer was allegedly tortured so severely by the SS that on October 12, 1938 he "put an end to his life".

Public Prosecutor Rechfeld was released from the concentration camp on November 17, 1938, returned to Salzburg and moved with his wife and daughter to Vienna, where he died on July 19, 1940 at the age of 54 as a result of his imprisonment in the concentration camp. Langer's widow survived the Nazi regime and died in Salzburg at the age of 79.

Commemoration

On August 28, 2008, a stumbling block for Johann Langer was laid in front of the house at Rainerstraße 4 . In addition to his memorial stone there are six more, four for members of the Bonyhadi family, one for the seamstress Anna Pollak and one for the pianist Natalie Rosenthal. Ernest Bonyhadi, born 1924, survivor and contemporary witness, came from the USA to lay the stumbling blocks.

The Salzburg Regional Court took over the sponsorship of the Johann-Langer-Stolperstein. "We didn't know the story of our colleague," said the Vice President of the Regional Court, Philipp Bauer, to the newspaper Der Standard . However, when the Stolpersteine Salzburg personal committee approached the court presidium, they immediately took over the sponsorship. Bauer also demanded that the judges' association should review the history of the profession during the Nazi regime and the continuity of personnel after 1945.

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b Gert Kerschbaumer : Biography Johann Langer , Stolpersteine Salzburg , accessed on April 28, 2016. With a portrait photograph of Johann Langer, provided by the Mooshammer family. The Salzburg City and State Archives and the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial are named as sources .
↑ Traces of War: Stumbling Stones Rainerstraße 4 , accessed on April 29, 2016.
↑ Thomas Neuhold: Remembrance of a judge who brought Nazis to prison , Der Standard , August 29, 2008, accessed on April 28, 2016. With a photograph by the historian Johannes Hofinger, the contemporary witness Ernest Bonyhadi and the artist Gunter Demnig laying the stumbling block for Johann Langer.

personal data
SURNAME	Langer, Johann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Austrian lawyer, judge at the Salzburg Regional Court and victim of National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH	July 2, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH	Neuhaus , Bohemia
DATE OF DEATH	October 12, 1938
Place of death	Dachau concentration camp

[Kerschbaumer-1] Gert Kerschbaumer : Biography Johann Langer , Stolpersteine Salzburg , accessed on April 28, 2016. With a portrait photograph of Johann Langer, provided by the Mooshammer family. The Salzburg City and State Archives and the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial are named as sources .

[2] Traces of War: Stumbling Stones Rainerstraße 4 , accessed on April 29, 2016.

[derstandard-3] Thomas Neuhold: Remembrance of a judge who brought Nazis to prison , Der Standard , August 29, 2008, accessed on April 28, 2016. With a photograph by the historian Johannes Hofinger, the contemporary witness Ernest Bonyhadi and the artist Gunter Demnig laying the stumbling block for Johann Langer.