Johann Trnka

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Johann Trnka († March 24, 1950 in Vienna ) was the last person to be sentenced to death and executed by an Austrian court .

Life

In order to steal radio sets, Johann Trnka posed as a painter in 1946 and thus gained access to the apartments of two older women in Vienna whom he ambushed, robbed and finally murdered.

Trnka was charged with these robbery murders. The trial took place under the chairmanship of Regional Court President Otto Nahrhaft in the Regional Court for Criminal Matters Vienna , the "Gray House".

Trnka was sentenced to death for double homicide and was hanged on March 24, 1950 on the choke bar in the execution site of the "Gray House" . The executioner was a cinema assistant who had already been an executioner at executions at the choke barrels in the corporate state .

Legal bases

Trnka was convicted of murder under Austrian law of the Second Republic . After the Second World War , the death penalty was declared permissible again in Austria through due process for murder , but in 1950 it was deleted from the civil codes and only retained in military law. The execution of Trnka was the 31st and last of a person sentenced to death by an Austrian court in the post-war period. On February 7, 1968, the National Council unanimously decided to remove the possibility of creating court courts or other forms of exceptional jurisdiction from the constitution. Since then, Article 85 of the Federal Constitution has read: "The death penalty has been abolished."

The last execution on Austrian territory was carried out in February 1955. It was carried out under Allied law by the American occupying forces and was carried out on a camp guard of the former Mauthausen concentration camp .

literature

  • Anna Ehrlich: "From the end of horror to the present day - Coping with the past", in: Witches, Murderers, Executioners - The criminal history of Austria from the Middle Ages to the present . Vienna 2006, p. 229.
  • “... is punished with death!”, In: Public Safety 5–6 / 10, Forum Justizgeschichte, p. 30 f. ( [1] (PDF; 155 kB) online resource).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Photo by Nahrhaft at a judgment pronounced in 1950 .
  2. ↑ Roland Miklau: Overcoming the death penalty in Austria and in Europe. In: Erika Weinzierl, Oliver Rathkolb, Rudolf G. Ardelt and Siegfried Mattl (eds.): Justice and Contemporary History, Symposium Contributions 1976–1993. Vienna 1995, Volume 1, p. 723; Karl Haas: On the question of the death penalty in Austria 1945 to 1950. p. 403. New research results on the execution of death sentences by the Austrian people's courts and the ordinary criminal courts after 1945 are presented in an article by Martin F. Polaschek and Bernhard Sebl in the one for 2008 by Heimo Halbrainer, Claudia Kuretsidis-Haider and Elisabeth Ebner prepared anthology death penalty (= publications of the research center post-war justice, 2) will be published. www.todesstrafe.at .
  3. ↑ Miklau, as above, p. 726. Miklau emphasizes (722 f.) That the defeat of the federal government on May 24, 1950 was the result of a secret vote. With this voting mode, Parliament apparently responded to public pressure to maintain the death penalty.
  4. ↑ The history of the death penalty in Austria .
personal data
SURNAME Trnka, Johann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian robbery
DATE OF BIRTH 19th century or 20th century
DATE OF DEATH March 24, 1950
Place of death Vienna