Josef Dreher

Josef Dreher (born June 20, 1896 in Dornbirn ; † September 24, 1963 there ) was an Austrian politician during the time of National Socialism in Austria . Dreher was mayor of Dornbirn from 1940 to 1945.

Live and act

Josef Dreher was born on June 20, 1896 as the son of the appreteur Albert Dreher and his wife Maria Anna (née Diem) in the Vorarlberg town of Dornbirn in the Rhine Valley . Even before Austria was annexed to the German Reich in 1938, Dreher was head of the then illegal Schutzstaffel (SS) in Vorarlberg, member of the NSDAP and head of the so-called "Dornbirner Kreis". He was thus one of the most prominent illegal National Socialists in the corporate state Vorarlberg. Between 1933 and 1938 Dreher was convicted by Austrian criminal courts on several occasions and spent a total of one and a half years in prison. During this time, the trained electrician also ran the “Weißes Kreuz” inn in Dornbirn's city center as an innkeeper, which was a well-known meeting place for the bourgeois-national circles in Dornbirn. Dreher married Julie Ölz from Dornbirn, one year older , on October 1, 1923 in Dalaas .

With the Anschluss in March 1938, the National Socialists initially took over the city administration on a provisional basis. Dreher was appointed first alderman (advisory city councilor ) and deputy mayor of Dornbirn under Mayor Paul Waibel . When Waibel had to resign from his office as Mayor of Dornbirn in January 1940 in a personal conflict with Gauleiter Franz Hofer , Dreher took over the office and took over the official business. His successor as first deputy mayor was the security director and former regional councilor Alfons Mäser , one of the most famous National Socialists in the country.

Josef Dreher remained Mayor of Dornbirn until the end of the war and the end of National Socialist rule in Austria. On May 2, 1945, he officially called on the townspeople to fulfill “their duty” for the benefit of “our hometown”, but at the same time allowed the well-known opponents of the regime, Eduard Ulmer and Johann Martin Luger, to come to them in the early morning hours of the same day instructed them to hand over the city to the advancing French occupation troops, which was expected for that day. He himself withdrew to the Dornbirn mountain area in Spatenbach and expected the end of the war there. With the constitution of the new municipal council appointed by the French occupation authorities and the assumption of office by Günther Anton Moosbrugger as successor to the mayor, Josef Dreher officially lost the mayor's office on May 18, 1945. In the resurrected Republic of Austria, Josef Dreher was subsequently charged by the People's Court for managing the illegal “Dornbirner Kreis”, temporarily managing the illegal SS in Vorarlberg and the state headquarters for the distribution of propaganda publications.

Web links

Josef Dreher in the Dornbirn Lexicon of the Dornbirn City Archives .

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b Entry on Josef Dreher. In: Family book of the Dornbirn City Archives . Retrieved March 2, 2018.

↑ ^a ^b Ingrid Böhler: Old fighters and new houses . In: Stadtarchiv Dornbirn (ed.): Dornbirner Schriften . tape 34 . Dornbirn 2008, ISBN 978-3-901900-21-1 , chapter "Old fighters" as new masters: the municipal administrative elite , p. 97 .

↑ ^a ^b Ingrid Böhler: Dornbirn in wars and crises 1914–1945 (= Rolf Steininger , Institute for Contemporary History at the University of Innsbruck [Hrsg.]: Innsbrucker Forschungen zur Zeitgeschichte . Volume 23 ). Studienverlag , Innsbruck 2005, ISBN 3-7065-1974-7 , p. 172-173 .

↑ ^a ^b Werner Bundschuh : Inventory: Heimat Dornbirn 1850 - 1950 (= Vorarlberger Authors' Society [Hrsg.]: Studies on the history and society of Vorarlberg . Volume 8 ). JN Teutsch, Bregenz 1990, ISBN 3-900754-08-X , p. 242 f .

↑ Ingrid Böhler: Dornbirn in wars and crises 1914–1945 (= Rolf Steininger , Institute for Contemporary History at the University of Innsbruck [ed.]: Innsbrucker Forschungen zur Zeitgeschichte . Volume 23 ). Studienverlag , Innsbruck 2005, ISBN 3-7065-1974-7 , p. 223 .

predecessor	Office	successor
Paul Waibel	Mayor of Dornbirn 1940–1945	Günther Anton Moosbrugger

personal data
SURNAME	Dreher, Josef
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Austrian politician
DATE OF BIRTH	June 20, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH	Dornbirn
DATE OF DEATH	September 24, 1963
Place of death	Dornbirn

[Familienbuch-1] Entry on Josef Dreher. In: Family book of the Dornbirn City Archives . Retrieved March 2, 2018.

[Alte_Kämpfer_und_neue_Häuser-2] Ingrid Böhler: Old fighters and new houses . In: Stadtarchiv Dornbirn (ed.): Dornbirner Schriften . tape 34 . Dornbirn 2008, ISBN 978-3-901900-21-1 , chapter "Old fighters" as new masters: the municipal administrative elite , p. 97 .

[Dornbirn_in_Kriegen_und_Krisen-3] Ingrid Böhler: Dornbirn in wars and crises 1914–1945 (= Rolf Steininger , Institute for Contemporary History at the University of Innsbruck [Hrsg.]: Innsbrucker Forschungen zur Zeitgeschichte . Volume 23 ). Studienverlag , Innsbruck 2005, ISBN 3-7065-1974-7 , p. 172-173 .