Josef Teufl (resistance fighter)

Memorial plaque in the Mauthausen concentration camp

Josef Teufl , known as Sepp Teufl (born November 24, 1904 in Vienna ; † April 28 or April 29, 1945 in Mauthausen concentration camp ) was an Austrian politician ( KPÖ ) and resistance fighter against Austrofascism and National Socialism . Teufl belonged to the conspiratorial camp resistance in Mauthausen concentration camp and was murdered shortly before the camp was liberated.

Life

Teufl, whose father was a music teacher and mother was a nurse, completed an apprenticeship as a locksmith from 1919 to 1922 after graduating from elementary and middle school. First he worked in his training company, the Linz locomotive factory Krauss, until 1926 , then the Steyr works and finally from 1929 at the Linz tobacco factory . Teufl had been married since 1927 and had three children.

Political and trade union activity

Teufl, who belonged to the Republican Schutzbund , became a member of the KPÖ in the late 1920s. In the Linz tobacco factory he was a union member, became a works council and organized a protest against the controversial death sentence for Sacco and Vanzetti . From 1932 until the free trade unions were banned in 1934, Teufl was the tobacco workers' union's shop steward. Teufl was dismissed in 1934 by the directorate of the Linz tobacco factory.

Resistance to Austrofascism

After the ban on the KPÖ by the Austro-Fascist government in May 1933, Teufl became regional chairman of the KPÖ in Upper Austria and illegally continued his political activity under the cover name “Brand”.

After he and other communists and socialists had been arrested on September 9, 1933, he publicly opposed Otto Bauer's wait-and-see attitude and in favor of the fight against Austrofascism. Teufl took an active part in the February battles in 1934 and then organized illegal leaflet campaigns in Linz. In August 1934, Teufl was confirmed in the office of regional chairman of the KPÖ at a conspiratorial state conference. In this function, Teufl sought cooperation with members of the Republican Protection Association and Social Democrats. From September 1934 to March 1935, Teufl was arrested in the Linz Regional Court for illegal political activity and was elected to the Central Committee in absentia at the 12th party congress of the KPÖ in September 1934. Teufl was because of the illegal political activity, u. a. He is said to have founded a communist cell in the tobacco factory, sentenced by the Linz Regional Court on March 28, 1935 to four months in heavy dungeon. Teufl was interned in the Wöllersdorf detention center from May 1936 to December 1936 due to “keeping the public quiet from being disturbed” . Later Teufl got his job back at the tobacco factory.

Resistance to National Socialism

After Austria was " annexed " to the German Reich in March 1938, Teufl was monitored by the Gestapo , but behaved inconspicuously. After the beginning of the Second World War , Teufl did not have to do military service in the Wehrmacht due to his political background. Due to Teufl's charisma and his influence, Gauleiter August Eigruber , who was known to him from prison , tried in vain to win over a position as an official with the National Socialists. Teufl continued his work in a conspiratorial manner, printing and distributing illegal leaflets and building the national leadership of the KPÖ and from 1940 was chairman of the reorganized national leadership of the KPÖ. Teufl was also betrayed by a Gestapo spy and in September 1944 he was taken to Mauthausen concentration camp with other communists. In Mauthausen he was a leading member of the camp resistance and organized illegal political work, had escape routes spied and the SS members observed in the camp. In Mauthausen, Teufl had to do forced labor in the quarry and was severely mistreated several times by the camp staff. On April 28, 1945, Eigruber sent the order to murder the Communists from Linz and Wels, who had been brought in in September, by radio to Mauthausen, because he saw them as “forces willing to build up” for the Allies and wanted to prevent this. After a failed attempt to escape, 42 of the 43 prisoners destined to be killed were gassed on April 28 or 29, 1945 .

Commemoration

Commemorative plaques for Teufl are in Linz (1955), Vienna (1948) and the former crematorium of Mauthausen concentration camp (2001). Teuflstrasse is located on Bindermichl in Linz. Teufl's daughter Ingeborg Ertelt wrote a biography about her father.

literature

• Ingeborg Ertelt: My bill will run until the beginning of May. From the life of the resistance fighter Sepp Teufl (1904–1945). Grünbach 2003.
• Siegwald Ganglmair : Resistance and persecution in Linz during the Nazi era . In: Fritz Mayrhofer, Walter Schuster (Ed.): National Socialism in Linz . Linz 2002, pp. 1407-1466.

Web links

• Josef Teufel at www.klahrgesellschaft.at
• Contemporary history - The resistance fighter Josef Teufl (1933-1945) . In: Eurojournal Edition 4 from 2001, Linz 2001, p. 14.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The murder of the "Welser Group"
2. ↑ Contemporary history - The resistance fighter Josef Teufl (1933-1945) . In: Eurojournal Edition 4 from 2001, Linz 2001, p. 14.