Josef Perterer

Josef Perterer (born December 18, 1902 in Innsbruck ; † September 6, 1962 there ) was an Austrian volunteer in the Spanish Civil War.

Life

Due to his participation in the Höttinger Saalschlacht and the threat of conviction, the trained machine fitter emigrated to the Soviet Union in 1932 . When the Spanish Civil War broke out , he went to Spain in 1938 and fought in the International Brigades on the side of the Spanish Republic .

Like many other interbrigadists, especially Germans and Austrians, he fled the massacres by Franco troops across the border to France in 1939 . There he was sent to an improvised internment camp in Saint-Cyprien . He was later taken to the Camp de Gurs internment camp and then to the Le Vernet internment camp . On February 14, 1942, it was handed over to the German authorities. Perterer was held prisoner by the Gestapo in Innsbruck from April 11, 1942 to September 16, 1942 . Then he was sent to the Reichenau labor education camp , where he was forced to work for the Gestapo as a Russian interpreter in the camp from January 1, 1943 after his protective custody was lifted .

After the Second World War he was imprisoned for three years by the French occupiers in 1945, from September 28, 1945 to November 25, 1948. He was convicted by the Innsbruck People's Court in 1950 for mistreating Russian slave laborers . Perterer himself had admitted "to have given slaps".

In post-war Austria he worked as a worker for the municipal garbage disposal in Innsbruck. Perterer was married and had two children.

literature

• Friedrich Stepanek; "I fought all fascism". Life paths of Tyrolean Spanish fighters ; Study publisher; 2010; Innsbruck. ISBN 978-3-7065-4833-5

Web links

• Entry in the archives of Spain in the documentation archives of the Austrian resistance
• For Spain's freedom (interview with Friedrich Stepanek)