Johann Otto Haas

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Memorial plaque for Johann Otto Haas

Johann Otto Haas (born on January 6, 1906 in Hungarian Altenburg (now Mosonmagyaróvár in Hungary); executed on August 30, 1944 in Vienna ) was an Austrian resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

Early life

Johann Otto Haas was born in the partnership of Philomena Haas with Leonard Josef Trexler in Hungarian Altenburg as the first of four children (3 sons, one daughter), afterwards the family lived in Vienna. His father, Leonard Josef Trexler (1865–1928), was an iron turner , born in the Bohemian Reizenhain (near Komotau, now Chomutov in the Czech Republic). His first marriage (Roman / Catholic) was Anna Elise Mathilde Beyer (1856– 1935) from Köslin on the Baltic Sea (Pomerania, now Poland); this marriage did not end in divorce. Johann Otto Haas' mother, Philomena Haas (1881–1973), was a small farmer from Carinthia . Their four children with Leonard Josef Trexler had the family name Haas. His parents became involved in the Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP) at an early age, and from 1919 to 1923 Leonard Josef Trexler was a member of his party in the district council of the Vienna district of Brigittenau . Philomena Haas sat both before and after the Second World War as a member of the SDAP, and later the SPÖ, in the Vienna state parliament and local council .

After his father's death in 1925, the family moved into a council building. The family lived in poverty; Johann and his siblings were noticed at school because of their malnutrition. Nevertheless, on the advice of his mother, he decided to attend the teacher training institute and then completed a course at the federal higher boarding school in the district of Penzing, which was created by Otto Glöckel . To finance the school, but also to support his mother and siblings, Haas worked by the hour as a construction worker.

Career

Haas got involved in politics at an early age, gathered young social democrats around him, was a functionary for the Kinderfreunde and a member of the Rote Falken . Since his mother's apartment often served as a meeting place for young people, Philomena Haas was nicknamed Haasenmutter . Haas worked as a librarian in the SDAP. Haas briefly studied history at the University of Vienna before he found a job as a teacher at a school in Floridsdorf in 1928 .

His resistance activity began after the Austrian Civil War in 1934. After the SDAP was banned, he began to support the victims of the February fighting . During this time he also got to know Josef Afritsch , Minister of the Interior in the Second Republic of Austria . Because of his illegal contacts, Haas was sentenced to four weeks in police custody in the Wöllersdorf detention center. After his release from prison Haas completed his studies and received his doctorate in 1937 for Doctor of Philosophy .

resistance

After Austria was annexed to the German Reich in 1938, Haas began to build up a network of contacts. He kept connections to Sopade , the exile organization of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in Prague, and to Walter Wach, an officer in the Wehrmacht , who informed Haas about the plans of the Supreme Army Command. Since Haas believed that the monopoly on the news was a regime's strongest weapon, he himself founded an intelligence service to which his mother, friends and fellow teachers belonged and which sent encrypted messages to like-minded people across Europe .

Under the code name Ludwig, he made contact with the Brunner couple in Wörgl in Tyrol , but also with the Nazi resistance fighters Hermann Frieb in Munich and Bebo Wager in Augsburg . Another member of the organization was the Salzburg- born railway worker Toni Graf.

Haas was drafted into the Wehrmacht in May 1939 . He was deployed as a soldier in the Air Force in Bratislava , where he was mainly used in the office in the weather service. Here he got to know other resistance fighters, Eduard Göth , a teacher from Ludweis-Aigen , and the high school administrator Josef Franz Sommerauer. Above all, Göth was important for the group, because as a worker in the Wiener Neustädter Flugzeugwerke he got an insight into the armament of the regime.

This information was disseminated through many types of communication channels through Haas's intelligence service. While the encrypted messages were initially hidden in pillows, hollow book covers or invisible ink were later used. He also listened to enemy broadcasters and thus collected information about the Soviet Union , the German campaigns and the entry into the war by the United States .

This work went well for almost three years. Haas' organization of the Revolutionary Socialists had at least 200 members at its zenith. There is no evidence that the group was betrayed; it is certain that Philomena Haas entrusted a couple with six pistols and ammunition, which they buried in a cellar. A copy of a collection of messages made in 1941, which a courier had sent to the other branches in Germany and Austria, was also buried. This depot was discovered by the Secret State Police (Gestapo) in the spring of 1942 .

death

Hermann Frieb was the first of Haas's group to be arrested at the front on March 26, 1942, and shortly afterwards he was followed by the Augsburg-based Bebo Wager . Haas, who learned of the arrests, fled from Bratislava to Vienna, where he found refuge in a hiding place. Nevertheless, the Gestapo found the hiding place and arrested Haas in Schwechat on June 20, 1942 . Almost all members of Haas' group were arrested over the next few months, including his mother on September 23, 1942. On December 10, 1942, Haas was dishonorably discharged from the Wehrmacht. This was followed by around a year and a half of interrogation, during which he was tortured and forced to name information and followers.

Haas was deported to Berlin , where he was tried with Eduard Göth, who had been arrested on August 7, 1942. The notorious Nazi judge Roland Freisler chaired the meeting . Haas stated in court that he knew that the German army would perish and that his work had served to collect information for the victorious powers and to build an organization for the time after the war. Both Haas and Göth were sentenced to death by guillotine on December 15, 1943. Another co-defendant received a twelve-year prison term. In order to extract more information from Haas, he was tortured for another eight months. He was not beheaded on August 30, 1944 in Vienna, as the judgment provided, but hanged.

Others

  • Eduard Göth was executed on March 13, 1944.
  • The Brunner couple from Wörgl were executed in Munich-Stadelheim on September 9, 1943 .
  • Hermann Frieb and Bebo Wager died on August 12, 1944.
  • Philomena Haas, Haas' mother, survived the war in a prison in Germany. In 1945 she was liberated by the Russians and returned to Vienna. She died on November 24, 1973, at the age of 92.
  • Over 200 people were arrested in connection with the Haas group in southern Germany and Austria . At least forty people were executed, including at least eight Austrians.
  • The residential complex in which Haas lived before his arrest has been called Otto-Haas-Hof since 1950 . The mayor of Vienna at the time, Theodor Körner , carried out the inauguration personally.

Web links and sources

personal data
SURNAME Haas, Johann Otto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Haas, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH January 6, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Mosonmagyaróvár , Hungary
DATE OF DEATH August 30, 1944
Place of death Vienna