Josef Stanek (trade unionist)

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Illustration by Josef Stanek
Regional court Graz , in whose court Josef Stanek was executed at the Würgegalgen .

Josef Stanek (* 1883 ; † February 17, 1934 ) was an Austrian politician and metalworker union. He is one of the nine people who were sentenced to death and executed after the February fighting in 1934 .

biography

activity

After the First World War, Josef Stanek worked in Wiener Neustadt . Later he was city councilor and secretary of the Styrian Chamber of Labor in Graz , where he was responsible for legal protection matters. In addition, he held a number of functions in the union and in the SDAP environment . Because of his activities for the Social Democrats , he had already been punished in 1920 and 1925 for “political unlawful acts”, and two other proceedings were prematurely discontinued. The extent to which Stanek was also an active Schutzbund leader has not been conclusively clarified.

February fighting 1934

The day after the fighting on February 12th, Stanek was arrested in his apartment in Graz. When he was questioned on February 14th, he said that he spent the morning of February 12th in his office in the Chamber of Labor. During the lunch break he had met Koloman Wallisch on the street , who had informed him of the fighting in Linz and the call of a general strike. Then he went home and suffered a nervous breakdown .

The stand trial against Stanek and the co-defendants Johann Mörth and Erich Wogg began on February 16. Only detectives and Stanek's wife Wilhelmine, who decided not to testify, were allowed to take part as witnesses. According to the report by the detective Alfred Raab, Stanek went to the guard room in Hackhergasse, which was already occupied by the Schutzbund , and gave a speech there. A little later on Mariahilferplatz ( Lend district ) there was an exchange of words and a shootout between members of the Schutzbund and detectives. According to Raab's report, it was unclear whether Stanek shot himself. The defendants Mörth and Wogg, who were on trial for their involvement in the battles over the pastoral school and the rail rolling mill in Gösting , heavily incriminated Stanek with their statements. After a temporary interruption, the trial continued on February 17th. The verdict for Stanek was ultimately "guilty as prosecuted" and thus death by hanging .

Upon request, Stanek was given a third hour before the execution of the judgment in order to obtain a pardon from the Federal President. Justice Minister Kurt Schuschnigg decided, however, not to forward the application to the Federal President. In the rejection of the pardon it says: "The Federal Minister of Justice has decided not to make a pardon in the present case because it is a question of a leader and, according to a communication from the governor in Styria, there has not yet been a deterrent effect. " The execution Stanek found at 16 o'clock in the courtyard of the Provincial Court of Graz on Würgegalgen instead. The executioner was not Johann Lang , but Julius Fuchs from Eggenberg . This was a prosecution servant at the Anatomical Institute of Graz University , who had volunteered for this task. On the day of Stanek's sentencing and execution in Graz, the social democrat Josef Ahrer was also sentenced to death and executed in Steyr .

The Fuchs murder case, 1934

One week after Josef Stanek's execution, there was a related murder. On March 21, 1934, the body of a member of the Voluntary Protection Corps Johann Fuchs was pulled from the Mur in Graz . The body of the father of four had a gunshot wound to the back of the head. The police assumed in their investigations that the murder was actually Julius Fuchs, the executioner Staneks, and that the Schutzkorpsmann Johann Fuchs had only been killed because of a confusion of names.

family

Josef Stanek's widow Wilhelmine was awarded the title of Citizen of the City of Graz by resolution of the Graz City Council on June 7, 1962 . She died on June 27, 1967.

Josef Stanek and his wife Wilhelmine are buried in the Graz Central Cemetery .

Josef and Wilhelmine Stanek had a son, Josef Stanek junior (1911–1938). From 1928 he was a member of the SDAP and company commander in the Grazer Schutzbund . In autumn 1934 he was arrested in Vienna and sent to the Wöllersdorf detention center. After his release in 1935, he first emigrated to Czechoslovakia and then to the Soviet Union , where he married a Russian woman. He was arrested there in 1936, sentenced to death in 1938 for " counterrevolutionary Trotskyist activity" and shot. In 1990 Josef Stanek junior was rehabilitated.

Commemoration

In 2007 a memorial plaque for Josef Stanek was installed in the entrance area of ​​the Volkshochschule Graz (Hans-Resel-Gasse 6, 8020 Graz). Josef-Stanek-Gasse in Kapfenberg- Hafenendorf is named after him.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Edelbauer, Anton Ofenböck 73
  2. ^ Rejection of the pardon of Josef Stanek, February 17, 1934, quoted from Anzengruber / Polaschek, Resistance 220 ( online )
  3. ↑ Köck, persecution , see literature
  4. ↑ 1934–1945: Under Dictatorship and Fascism ( Memento of the original of March 21, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. arbeiterkammer.at  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.arbeiterkammer.at
  5. ^ Bauer, February uprising 98-99.
  6. ^ Bauer, February uprising 98-99.
  7. ^ Deceased citizens of the city of Graz
  8. ^ Austrian Stalin victims up to 1945: Josef Stanek (1911-1938)
personal data
SURNAME Stanek, Josef
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian politician and trade unionist
DATE OF BIRTH 1883
DATE OF DEATH February 17, 1934