Josef Hans Grafl

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Josef Hans Grafl (born October 10, 1921 in Schattendorf ; † June 10, 2008 in Bad Aussee ) was an Austrian resistance fighter against National Socialism . The trained bricklayer was a member of the KPÖ from 1934 , resigned from the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front in 1941 and went over to the Soviet partisans , got to the British via Bulgaria and Greece and was then recruited by the SOE secret service . At the beginning of 1945 he parachuted over the Salzkammergut together with three other agents of Austrian descent who were on duty in the UK and was involved in the arrest of Ernst Kaltenbrunner .

youth

Grafl was born in 1921 in Schattendorf, Burgenland , a then strongly social democratic community directly on the Hungarian border, where political unrest had already broken out in the 1920s (see Schattendorfer judgment ). His family was also shaped by social democrats and politically active. Josef Hans Grafl first went to school in Schattendorf and then moved to Vienna to begin an apprenticeship as a bricklayer. There he initially had contact with the socialist youth workers , where he was trained as a radio operator in addition to his apprenticeship. After February 1934, however, he and his sisters made contact with the communists and became a member of the banned KPÖ . In 1937 he was therefore imprisoned in the Wöllersdorf detention center for three months . However, he was later able to continue his apprenticeship and attended a course to become a master mason. However, after the annexation of Austria, he could no longer complete this because he was called up for military service on October 17, 1940.

Due to his earlier political activities and the proximity to his well-known communist and later executed brother-in-law, however, he was classified as "unworthy of defense" and therefore sent by the Wehrmacht to the radio school in Aurich . After the attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, he was employed as a radio operator in the Wehrmacht's intelligence department behind the front in Ukraine. During his assignment in Bulgaria he sabotaged the German army by forwarding secret radio messages to the Soviet Union. His activity was soon discovered and he was sentenced to death in 1941 in Varna for undermining military strength. There he succeeded in deserting and making contact with Soviet partisans.

Escape

Together with two colleagues, he was able to leave Ukraine on a German ship because they had become friends with the skipper. However, this freighter was brought up on the Black Sea by a Turkish warship and Grafl was then launched in Constanța , Romania . From there he set out on foot towards Athens to make contact with the Andartes , the Greek partisans. On the march there, however, he was recognized as a deserter in Kilkis, which was occupied by German troops, and was imprisoned. With the help of two Bulgarian female partisans, however, he managed to escape shortly afterwards and was able to avoid the impending execution. On the following march through the mountains, he soon met a Greek partisan. The latter thought he was a German soldier and arrested him. In one of the following nights, however, he succeeded in removing the weapon from the Greek and forced the latter to march with him to Athens. Once there, it quickly became clear that Grafl was not a Nazi, and he joined the partisan company in the Dourgouti district. In this quarter of Athens the local Greek police and the prostitutes were on the partisan side and Grafl could therefore live undisturbed with a Greek family. However, the German occupiers made regular raids in Dourgouti, during which the partisans withdrew to the nearby forests, only to infiltrate the city a little later. They were supplied with weapons and supplies by the British. As tensions arose between the communist ELAS partisans and the republican EDES at this time , and cases of corruption and betrayal continued to arise, Grafl no longer felt safe in Athens. He decided to use the contacts with the British and was recruited by them.

In British service

At this time, the British military actively recruited German and Austrian soldiers who had deserted in Greece and the Balkans and even planned to set up an Austrian Legion (not to be confused with the Austrian Legion, which is identical in English ). This enabled Grafl to leave Greece on a British submarine in early 1942 and was brought to Alexandria in Egypt. After a short general training course in Cairo, the British sent him to Haifa in Palestine for pilot training . Then he was used in the Asian theater of war against the Japanese. Grafl was stationed there as part of a fighter crew in India, which flew missions over Burma, China and as far as Japan, mostly as escort for American bombers.

After numerous missions in Asia, Grafl felt that he was fighting on the right side, but in the wrong place. He asked his superiors to be transferred to Europe to fight for Austria's freedom there. He was then offered to report to the Action Service of the British Secret Service Special Operations Executive , as he could at least expect operations there near his home. Not knowing what kind of operations this would be, Grafl accepted this offer in 1944 and was initially trained as an agent in Hong Kong under the code name "Josef Green" and was introduced to various sabotage techniques. During this time, the British secret service had begun, closely coordinated with the reconnaissance, to parachute special commands behind the German lines in order to prepare the advance of the Allies in enemy territory with the help of sabotage. Grafl took part in a total of 34 parachute commandos, during which bridges were blown up and the German means of retreat sabotaged. This gave him the reputation of being an experienced warrior with the British, and that is why the secret service resorted to him when a special operation was planned on Austrian soil.

Last days of the war

From a British Halifax machine , the group jumped over on April 8, 1945 Feuerkogel from

At the beginning of 1945 the SOE planned to jump over the Salzkammergut in order to get more detailed information about the alpine fortress , which was praised by the German propaganda . Albrecht Gaiswinkler , who worked for the British, was entrusted with the task of putting together a team of Austrians who would be suitable for this assignment. He quickly found the Viennese Karl Licca and Karl Standhartinger , who appeared to be trustworthy and who were ready to take part in this risky special command. However, a radio operator was still missing. The British suggested a suitable South Tyrolean, which Gaiswinkler rejected, however, because he was a "black", that is, politically close to the bourgeoisie. Thereupon Josef Grafl was brought from Africa to the base of the Royal Air Force in southern Italy and Gaiswinkler, who himself was close to the communists, accepted Grafl as a member of this special command.

In the meantime, however, the British Enlightenment had learned that Joseph Goebbels was planning a vacation at the Grundlsee . Since this was one of the main pillars of the still strong German resistance and had been calling out the slogan of total war in the weeks before , the plan was drawn up by the British secret service that command should jump over the Zinken , a mountain near Altaussee , in order to either arrest or kill the Reich Propaganda Minister from there at a favorable moment. On April 8, 1945, the command consisting of these four Austrians started with a British machine from Brindisi in the south of Italy towards Austria and parachuted over the Salzkammergut. Due to poor visibility and a navigation error by the pilot, however, the group landed scattered on the Feuerkogel instead of on the Zinken and only the next day they were able to gather again in the rugged terrain, although some of the equipment that had also been dropped was lost. Since there were constant German patrols even in the mountains, the group had to march on with great caution. In this situation Albrecht Gaiswinkler persuaded the radio operator Josef Grafl to leave the heavy radio on the mountain, otherwise a descent would be too difficult. Grafl, who comes from the flatlands of Burgenland, trusted Gaiswinkler, who was familiar with the region in the Salzkammergut, and any contact with the British secret service was interrupted. However, they soon learned from the population that Goebbels had left for Berlin a few days earlier due to the increasingly precarious war situation and that the mission's primary goal was therefore unattainable. However, an investigation of the actual location in the Alpine fortress was also pointless, since no information could be transmitted to the British due to the lack of a radio device. So the group decided to remain inconspicuous and to wait for the approach of the Allied troops.

The mountainous Salzkammergut and especially the Ausseer Land were in the no man's land between the Americans coming from the west and the Red Army advancing from the east, which means that the last days of the war there were chaotic and have not yet been adequately explored. Some important National Socialists had withdrawn to this region and tried to bring their assets and parts of their art treasures stolen from all over Europe here. Those who were still loyal to the regime wanted to obey Hitler's Nero order and destroy the works of art stored in Altaussee so that they would not fall into the hands of the enemy. Others tried to prevent this in order to distinguish themselves against the approaching allies. Still others wanted to destroy all incriminating documents and go into hiding disguised as normal civilians with as many valuables as possible.

The actions of the four Austrian agents in British service is therefore difficult to assess historically, as the statements of those involved differ greatly. Gaiswinkler later claimed that, despite the difficult situation, he had been involved in the disempowerment of the last National Socialists and had even played a decisive role in saving the art treasures stored in the Altaussee salt mine. Grafl, however, later raised serious allegations against Gaiswinkler and accused him of deliberately sabotaging the entire commando operation. However, there is evidence that Grafl was involved in the arrest of Gestapo chief Kaltenbrunner , who was later convicted and executed as a war criminal in the Nuremberg trials .

Some of the Special Operations Executive's documents are still under lock and key in the archives in London and could be published in the next few years. Then, under certain circumstances, a more precise historical assessment of the events in the last days of the war in the Salzkammergut would be possible. However, it is already known today that the British secret service had no current information about Goebbels' whereabouts and that he had already left when the command took up this mission on April 8, 1945.

Hollywood film adaptation

Despite the thin source location, Hollywood has taken on this subject and parts of the story to Albrecht Gaiswinkler and Joseph Grafl were in 1968 in the movie " Where Eagles Dare (" die agent alone ) with Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood accepted. This film was shot in the nearby Salzach Valley near Hohenwerfen Castle and also shows scenes from the actual scene of these events on the Feuerkogel. However, the agents depicted here were British and American. A film adaptation based on the memoirs of Albrecht Gaiswinkler is the television film " At the end of a long winter ", which was jointly produced by ORF and ARD in 1990 based on a book by Walter Wippersberg .

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personal data
SURNAME Grafl, Josef Hans
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Grafl, Josef
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian resistance fighter against National Socialism and British agent
DATE OF BIRTH October 10, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Schattendorf
DATE OF DEATH June 10, 2008
Place of death Bad Aussee