Karl Fischer (resistance fighter)

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Karl Fischer, 1962

Karl Fischer (born September 23, 1918 in Vienna ; † March 17, 1963 ibid) was an Austrian Trotskyist politician and resistance fighter who spent almost 13 years imprisoned in three dictatorial systems.

Life

Karl Fischer in 1934

Youth and origin

Karl Fischer was the son of the silk winder and resistance fighter Maria Fischer (1897–1962). She called her son " Kegel ", a medieval name for an illegitimate child, a name that Fischer later used as an alias in the underground .

Fischer completed a three-year commercial apprenticeship in the iron shop "Elschka und Radtl" in Vienna-Landstrasse . In 1934 he joined the Communist Youth Association (KJV) in Vienna. In mid-1935 he split off with Georg Scheuer , Ernst Federn , Melanie Berger and other like-minded people with a Trotskyist youth organization, the Revolutionary Communists of Austria (RKÖ) , which competed with Stalinist groups and followed the principles of permanent revolution . This theory developed by Leon Trotsky assumed that in the age of imperialism even the struggle for democratic achievements could only be successful through revolutionary overthrow. Fischer opposed not only Austrian fascism and National Socialism , but also the Stalinist terror in the Soviet Union .

Together with Josef Hindels , Georg Scheuer, Josef Reinwein, Franz Lederer u. a. he formed the editorial staff of the illegal newspaper Bolshevik .

Resistance, Persecution and Detention

In austrofascism

Karl Fischer, photo by the Austrian State Police, November 6, 1936

Arrested by the Austrian state police in Vienna at the beginning of November 1936 , Fischer was arrested on September 23, 1937 by the Supreme Court together with Georg Scheuer and other like-minded people in the Vienna Trotskyist trial because of his involvement in the production and distribution of illegal political pamphlets for high treason as punishment for imprisonment in The duration of five years, exacerbated by a quarterly fast day, was sentenced, but with the February amnesty 1938 released early from custody in Krems-Stein . In the referendum announced by Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg for March 1938, the revolutionary communists around Karl Fischer recommended a " No " to "Anschluss" with Nazi Germany and called for a general strike.

In National Socialism

Borrowing card "prisoner library KL Buchenwald", Karl Fischer, prisoner no. 76999, block 42D

After the "Anschluss of Austria" to the National Socialist German Reich , he emigrated via Switzerland to France in May 1938 , and later to Belgium , where he was active in the resistance against National Socialism .

In Paris , together with Georg Scheuer, who had also emigrated, on September 3, 1938, he took part in the founding of the Trotskyist Fourth International , although the two Austrian delegates voted against the proclamation of the International because of fundamentally different assessments of the world situation . Karl Fischer formulated this in his speech to the delegates of the founding conference with the following words: “Despite your optimistic resolution , which you probably do not believe in yourself, we are of the opinion that the second imperialist redivision of the world has already begun with the Austrian Anschluss goes on. The Spanish Civil War itself has already entered this new world war and is lost to the workers. It has to be said. Our duty is to tell the truth. You don't want to see the facts, or you see them and don't want to call them by name ... ”. As a result, the Austrian Revolutionary Communists (RKÖ) also separated organizationally from the Fourth International and began to criticize the assessments of the International and Trotsky.

In Antwerp Fischer was to be in May 1940 under the false accusation, "German spy", arrested and in a two-week rail transport in cattle cars ( "Le Train phantoms") in the French camp Saint-Cyprien (Pyrénées-Orientales) deported from the but he was able to escape (his second attempt to escape was successful). He then stayed in Montauban , Grenoble , Marseille , Paris and above all in Lyon or - still in the resistance against National Socialism - undertook secret courier trips for the Resistance . He again worked closely and a. with Georg Scheuer, who was also active in the French resistance, and other like-minded people. An example of their illegal activity was when members of the Revolutionary Communists (RK) , equipped with self-made, forged Gestapo papers, freed their imprisoned comrade Melanie Berger from the hospital of Les Baumettes prison in Marseille in a spectacular action , whereby they freed the prison entered and left without being recognized. With the help of secret inks and secret codes , they kept letters in contact with comrades in seven countries: France, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, USA , Norway and England .

On September 15, 1943, Fischer was arrested again on a courier trip for the Resistance to Paris, living in France under the code name "Emil (e) Berger" (he presented himself as a bilingual Alsatian ). Subsequently, in 1944, he was arrested by the Gestapo Extradited and from June 16, 1944 imprisoned in Fresnes prison ( Maison d'arrêt de Fresnes ) near Paris. From there he was deported to Buchenwald concentration camp in August 1944 , where he was registered as a prisoner on August 20, 1944. His prisoner number was 76999.

In Buchenwald he saved beginning of April 1945 just before the liberation as a member of the camp police his friend and fellow prisoner, the psychoanalyst Ernst springs, which also a member of the Revolutionary Communists of Austria (RKÖ) was, according to its own information life (see pictures of the letter Ernst Federns of March 30, 1963 to Maria Johanna Fischer on the death of Karl Fischer in the document gallery), by saving him from a death march by handing over his own white camp armband. This not only put himself in great danger, this may also have been a reason for his later deportation to the USSR . According to Ernst Federn, Austrian Stalinist concentration camp prisoners could have denounced Karl Fischer to the NKVD because he had got him the white armband.

After the liberation of the concentration camp by the United States Army on April 11, 1945, an editorial committee of former prisoners, consisting of Karl Fischer, Marcel Beaufrère, Florent Galloy and Ernst Federn, passed the "Declaration of the Internationalist Communists of Buchenwald" on April 20, 1945 .

In Stalinism

In 1945 he met his mother again by chance in Linz . She was taken into protective custody on April 14, 1943 as a member of the Trotskyist resistance group “Against the Current” by the Gestapo for “treasonous activity” and on December 10, 1943 for preparation for high treason by the 5th Senate of the People's Court in Vienna to five years in prison and sentenced to loss of honor for five years . She was initially in various prisons in Vienna, after her conviction in the Jauer women's penitentiary in what is now the Polish city ​​of Jawor , and then in the women's prison in Leipzig-Kleinmeusdorf until liberation by the United States Army on April 20, 1945 .

Due to his knowledge of French, Karl Fischer initially worked as an interpreter for the French Liaison Office in Linz. He then worked in the economics and statistics department of the Linz Chamber of Labor as an employee of Emily Rosdolsky .

Karl Fischer as a Soviet prisoner. Photo from the file on Karl Fischer (F. 461 / p, No. 190278) in the inventory group on prisoners of war and internees in the Moscow Special Archives
Kurt Seipel, dedication of the book My youth stayed in the ice of Siberia for the son of Karl Fischer, May 1997

On January 22, 1947, Fischer was kidnapped on the Nibelungen Bridge in Linz on the Soviet-American demarcation line by the Soviet secret service of the NKVD and fifteen years of age on June 28, 1947 under Article 58 of the RSFSR Criminal Code for alleged espionage, high treason, Trotskyism and Menshevism " Corrective Labor Camp " sentenced. There was no protest among the Austrian communists about the kidnapping. Fischer was first imprisoned in Amstetten , then in Baden near Vienna and in a prison in Sopron . He was then deported to the Soviet Union , where between August 26 and October 8, 1947 he was transported in a forty-four day train journey in freight wagons to Lviv , Wanino Bay and on to Magadan , the administrative center of the Gulag camp complex of the construction administration of the Far North and the headquarters of Dalstroi in Magadan Oblast . According to his own records, he has been in several Gulag camps in northeast Siberia in Kolyma since 1947 , namely from December 1947 to July 1950 in the Maxim Gorki camp complex ( gold mining area approx. 800 km north of Magadan), from August 1950 to April Imprisoned in 1951 in the Dneprovsk camp ( cassiterite mines approx. 200 km southwest of Maxim Gorki ) and from May 1951 to April 1952 in Lazo , a mine near Sejmchan . Karl Fischer attempted suicide in the Maxim Gorki camp complex , but survived.

Since April 1952 Fischer was imprisoned in the political isolator Alexandrowsk near Irkutsk . The Austrian Herbert Killian , who was also deported to Kolyma from 1947 to 1953, describes "that a maximum of 20 Austrians, i.e. one percent of the Austrians deported by the Soviets, were imprisoned in the Kolyma camps", as he said during a visit to Magadan in 2002 had been reported by a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences . He had known 13 of them personally. The length of stay in Kolyma varied for each individual and ranged from a few months to many years.

His former companion in suffering Kurt Seipel , with whom he experienced both the forty-four-day rail transport in freight wagons via Ödenburg ( Sopron ) to Lemberg , to the Vanino Bay ( Khabarovsk region ) and to Magadan, various penal camps, the political isolator Alexandrowsk near Irkutsk and the return transport to Austria , he saved his life several times during this time, according to his own statements (see picture of the dedication of the book My youth stayed in the ice of Siberia on the right).

The 180-page file on Karl Fischer's imprisonment is in the Moscow Special Archives of the Russian State Military Archives (RGWA). As a Gulag and political isolator prisoner, Fischer was absolutely not allowed to have any correspondence, not even with his mother, until April 1955, despite multiple requests from the Soviet authorities. The first letter to his mother is dated April 12, 1955 (see pictures in the documents gallery).

On March 26, 1992, the ORF - Inlandsreport published a 14-minute report by Peter Matha with the title Archive of Tears on the Moscow Special Archives and the discovery of the file on Karl Fischer, which was one of the first files to coincide with the Austrian file A copy of the civil servant and manager Margarethe Ottillinger was sent to Austria by the historian Stefan Karner .

Since 1955

Karl Fischer with his mother Maria in 1955
Karl Fischer in June 1955 in front of the Austrian Parliament
Karl Fischer with his son, 1959
Karl Fischer grave site, Ilz, Styria, 2019

On June 20, 1955, against the background of the conclusion of the Austrian State Treaty , Fischer was released early from Soviet custody and repatriated to Austria.

Back in Vienna, on June 30, 1955, he passed the examination in Russian at the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Vienna with good success (see certificate in the documents gallery). Fischer was recognized by the Republic of Austria on October 27, 1955 as a victim of the struggle for a free, democratic Austria in accordance with Section 4 of the Victims Welfare Act (OFG) of July 4, 1947 (see pictures in the documents gallery). When he tried, with the help of his friend and lawyer Christian Broda, to have the convictions of 1937 overturned, the Higher Regional Court of Vienna refused to do so because of the lack of a legal basis. Fischer, a member of the SPÖ since July 1, 1955 and a member of the Association of Socialist Freedom Fighters and Victims of Fascism since January 1957 , worked as a consultant in the statistical department of the Vienna Chamber of Labor until his death . He was also involved as the deputy works council chairman of the Vienna Chamber of Labor and, together with the works council chairman Adolf Findeis, organized the first "strike" in the Vienna Chamber of Labor.

It was during this time that he began - at the urging of friends such as Ernst Federn, Georg Scheuer, Josef Hindels and Josef Reinwein - to write the first section of his autobiography. This work, which Fischer could not complete due to his untimely death, consists of 97 typewritten pages and describes the period in his life from his arrest by the Soviets in Linz in 1947 to around the time of Stalin's death (1953). A copy of it is in the archive of the Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance in Vienna.

On September 18, 1956, Karl Fischer married Maria Johanna Fischer (1917–2004) in the parish church of Maria Hietzing in Vienna, the widow of his cousin Franz Fischer , who died on December 1, 1944 as a prisoner of war in Chelyabinsk . There is a son from marriage. Karl Fischer died on March 17, 1963 at the age of 44 of a stroke and pneumonia as a result of the agony he had suffered during internment. In the hall of the Vienna Chamber of Labor, friends and colleagues said goodbye in a memorial ceremony. a. Works council chairman Adolf Findeis and Josef Hindels held obituaries from the deceased. Fischer, like his mother Maria a year before, was initially buried at Vienna's south-west cemetery (burial date March 22, 1963). At the beginning of 1991 his wife Maria Johanna Fischer had both deceased exhumed and cremated . Both urns were then transferred to Ilz , Styria , and buried on March 25, 1991 in the local cemetery there.

“Karl Fischer was a good person. A selfless person for whom solidarity was an inner need. Helping, even if you harm yourself with it, that was a characteristic trait of his being. "

- Josef Hindels on the occasion of a memorial service for Karl Fischer in the Vienna Chamber of Labor , March 1963

“Karl Fischer died on the threshold of spring 1963, one year after his mother's death. A "natural" death? At his grave I see the sinister dictators and executioners who destroyed our generation, the powers against whom Karl Fischer fought to the last heartbeat. "

- Georg Scheuer, On the death of Karl Fischer, March 1963

rehabilitation

While the Soviet judgment on the application of his son by the Russian Federation on the basis of the Russian "Law on the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression" was repealed as unlawful on June 4, 1996 and Karl Fischer was finally acquitted of all accusations made against him In Austria, the legal basis for the repeal of the judgments from the time of Austrofascism was not created until 2012. In connection with this, Karl Fischer, also at the request of his son, was rehabilitated by the competent Austrian court, the Regional Court for Criminal Matters Vienna , by its president and judge Friedrich Forsthuber in a resolution passed on October 4, 2013, in which it was determined “that the against these judgments due to the crime of high treason from 1937 retrospectively apply as not taken ”. This means that all of the judgments ever imposed against Karl Fischer have been legally revoked as void and he is considered to have been extensively rehabilitated.

Document gallery

  • Letter from Karl Fischer to his future wife Maria Johanna Fischer from the Buchenwald concentration camp, postmarked "Weimar 1, 13.10.1944"

  • Letter from Karl Fischer to his future wife Maria Johanna Fischer from Buchenwald concentration camp, October 8, 1944

  • Document with fingerprints and signature of Karl Fischer, Vanino (USSR), October 9, 1947

  • Karl Fischer's first letter from the USSR to his mother Maria Fischer, April 12, 1955

  • Maria Fischer's first letter to her son Karl Fischer in the USSR, April 26, 1955

  • Karl Fischer, passed the examination in Russian with good success, certificate from the University of Vienna, June 30, 1955

  • Official certificate according to § 4 of the Victims Welfare Act W-Nr. 10239, Karl Fischer (outside)

  • Official certificate according to § 4 of the Victims Welfare Act W-Nr. 10239, Karl Fischer (inside)

  • Ernst Federn's letter to Maria Johanna Fischer on the death of Karl Fischer, Cleveland , Ohio , March 30, 1963, p. 1

  • Ernst Federn's letter to Maria Johanna Fischer on the death of Karl Fischer, Cleveland, Ohio, March 30, 1963, p. 2

  • Decision to rehabilitate Karl Fischer by the Russian Federation

  • Excerpt from the resolution on the rehabilitation of Karl Fischer by the Republic of Austria

literature

Writings as an author

  • Karl Fischer: Autobiography . Unfinished manuscript consisting of 97 typewritten pages, place and year of writing unknown. Archived in the Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance , Vienna; Original in private ownership.
  • Karl Fischer: Autobiography . In: Austrian Stalin Victims. Memorial. Junius-Verlags- und Vertriebsgesellschaft, Vienna 1990, ISBN 3-900370-81-8 , pp. 96-105. (Publication of the first part of Karl Fischer's unfinished autobiography).

Literature about Karl Fischer

  • Cécile Denis: Continuités et divergences dans la presse clandestine de résistants allemands et autrichiens en France pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale: KPD, KPÖ, Revolutionary Communists et trotskystes . Thèse de doctorat réalisée sous la direction d'Hélène Camarade, soutenue publiquement le 10 December 2018 à l'université Bordeaux-Montaigne (dissertation at the University of Bordeaux-Montaigne ), Bordeaux 2018. (French)
  • Hugo Dewar: Assassins at Large. Being a fully documented and hithero unpublished account of the executions outside Russia ordered by the GPU . Wingate-Verlag, London & New York 1951, pp. 169f. (English)
  • Harald Irnberger: The chloroform from the Christ child . In: Kurier , November 30, 1974, p. 11.
  • Roland Fischer: Fischer Maria (Marie); Seidenwinderin and resistance fighter. In: Ilse Korotin (ed.): BiografıA. Lexicon of Austrian Women. Volume 1: A-H. Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2016, ISBN 978-3-205-79590-2 , pp. 832–834.
  • Stefan Karner: In the GUPVI archipelago. Captivity and internment in the Soviet Union 1941–1956 . Oldenbourg Verlag, Vienna / Munich 1995, pp. 31, 36ff, 50 and 244. ISBN 3-7029-0399-2 (Vienna), ISBN 3-486-56119-7 (Munich). Russian: Moscow 2002.
  • Stefan Karner: The game "cone". In: Kleine Zeitung Spezial: 1945. From the Third Reich to the Second Republic. Ed .: Christian Less, Graz 2015, ISBN 978-3-902819-48-2 , p. 142.
  • Stefan Karner: Arrested and kidnapped. In: Kleine Zeitung Spezial: 1945. From the Third Reich to the Second Republic. Ed .: Christian Less, Graz 2015, ISBN 978-3-902819-48-2 , pp. 142f.
  • Fritz Keller : To the Gulag from East and West. Karl Fischer. Worker and revolutionary. ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-88332-046-3 .
  • Fritz Keller: Le Trotskysme en Autriche de 1934 a 1945 . In: Cahier Leon Trotsky No. 5, Paris Janvier-Mars 1980. (French)
  • Fritz Keller: Moor soldier . From the biography of the Austrian revolutionary Karl Fischer. In: Rotfront , Ed .: Gruppe Revolutionäre Marxisten , no. Unknown, 1979, pp. 5–7.
  • Fritz Keller: Quelques biographies de militants de l'Opposition autrichienne . In: Cahier Leon Trotsky No. 5, Paris Janvier-Mars 1980. (French)
  • Herbert Killian : Robbed Years. An Austrian kidnapped in the GULAG. Amalthea Signum Verlag, Vienna 2005, pp. 310f., ISBN 3-85002-920-4 .
  • Kurt Lhotzky: Who was Georg Scheuer, what was the Revolutionary Workers League? . In: Revolutionary History , Vol. 7, No. 1 London 1999. (English)
  • Emily Rosdolsky , Fritz Keller: 40 Years of “Trotskyist Trials” in Vienna . In: Rotfront . Ed .: Revolutionary Marxists Group, No. 8–9, September 1977.
  • Georg Scheuer : Karl Fischer's report on his escape in 1940 . Typewritten transcript of a tape interview between Georg Scheuer and Karl Fischer (12 pages), location of tape recording unknown, recording year 1962. Archived in the Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance, Vienna.
  • Georg Scheuer: Only fools fear nothing. Scenes from the Thirty Years War, 1915–1945. Publishing house for social criticism, Vienna 1991, ISBN 3-85115-133-X .
  • Fate of a generation. On the death of Karl Fischer. Obituaries by Georg Scheuer and Josef Hindels for Karl Fischer. In: Arbeit und Wirtschaft , trade union review, 17th year, May 1963, p. 26f.
  • Kurt Seipel , My youth stayed in the ice of Siberia. Deported to the GULAG at 19. Gerhard Botz , Ed .: Austrian Literature Forum , Krems an der Donau 1997, ISBN 3-900959-79-X , p. 91 and 377.
  • Eric Wegner: Trotskyist Victims of Nazi Terror in Austria - A Documentation . In: Marxismus , special number 8, August 2001, p. 37ff.

Web links

Commons : Karl Fischer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ilse Korotin : Making women visible. The project “biografiA. database and lexicon of austrian women ”. (PDF) ( Memento from October 18, 2017 in the Internet Archive ). P. 8f.
  2. ↑ a b c d Christine Chancellor: Fischer, Maria (Marie); Code name: Netz, Seidenwinderin and resistance fighter. Site of the “biografiA” module project Austrian women in resistance at the Institute for Science and Art , Vienna.
  3. ↑ In captivity: The game "Kegel" , information text on: Stefan Karner: Arrested and kidnapped . Kleine Zeitung of May 17, 2015, special Sunday supplement, p. 18f.
  4. ^ Fritz Keller: In the Gulag from East and West. Karl Fischer. Worker and revolutionary. ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-88332-046-3 , p. 11.
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g Cécile Denis: Continuités et divergences dans la presse clandestine de résistants allemands et autrichiens en France pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale: KPD, KPÖ, Revolutionary Communists et trotskystes , thesis of the dissertation at the University of Bordeaux Montaigne, Bordeaux 2018, accessed on June 20, 2020 (French)
  6. ↑ a b c Red Newsletter 68: On the 40th anniversary of Karl Fischer's death (1918–1963) ( Memento from September 23, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ Profil 27 (1996), p. 27.
  8. ↑ Georg Scheuer: Are we Trotskyists? , Page on doew.at.
  9. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Fritz Keller : Trotskyism in Austria ( Memento from August 16, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) (English).
  10. ^ Fritz Keller: In the Gulag from East and West. Karl Fischer. Worker and revolutionary. ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-88332-046-3 , p. 27.
  11. ^ Fritz Keller: In the Gulag from East and West. Karl Fischer. Worker and revolutionary. ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-88332-046-3 , S. 31.
    Ilse Reiter-Zatloukal : The pardon policy of the Schuschnigg government. From the Christmas amnesty in 1934 to the February amnesty in 1938. In: austriaca.at, Thomas Olechowski (Ed.): Contributions to the legal history of Austria (BRGÖ) 2/2012 , Volume 2, p. 360, February 12, 2013, published online on 20 December 2012 , accessed October 10, 2019 (pdf)
  12. ^ Ernst Schwager: The Austrian Emigration in France 1938–1945. Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Graz 1984, ISBN 3-20508-747-X , p. 51f.
  13. ^ Georg Scheuer : The founding of the IV. International. In: die Linke , Magazin der Sozialistische Alternative (SOAL) , 173rd edition, No. 19, 9th year, December 16, 1988, pp. 21-25.
  14. ↑ Series: Heads of the Workers' Movement - Georg Scheuer ( Memento from April 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  15. ↑ a b c Obituary Georg Scheuer, Encyclopedia of Trotskyism On-Line , page on marxists.org (English).
  16. ^ Fritz Keller: In the Gulag from East and West. Karl Fischer. Worker and revolutionary. ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-88332-046-3 , p. 49f.
  17. ↑ Georg Scheuer: Only fools fear nothing. Scenes from the Thirty Years War, 1915–1945. Verlag für Gesellschaftskritik, Vienna 1991, ISBN 3-85115-133-X , p. 153.
  18. ^ Fritz Keller: In the Gulag from East and West. Karl Fischer. Worker and revolutionary. ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-88332-046-3 , p. 57ff.
  19. ↑ Georg Scheuer: Only fools fear nothing. Scenes from the Thirty Years War, 1915–1945. Verlag für Gesellschaftskritik, Vienna 1991, ISBN 3-85115-133-X , p. 157ff.
  20. ↑ Karin Nusko: Berger Melanie; Seamstress, in the Resistance of the Labor Movement (KPÖ) / Resistance in Exile , page of the “biografiA” module project Austrian Women in Resistance at the Institute for Science and Art, Vienna.
  21. ^ Fritz Keller: In the Gulag from East and West. Karl Fischer. Worker and revolutionary. ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-88332-046-3 , pp. 70f.
  22. ↑ Georg Scheuer: Only fools fear nothing. Scenes from the Thirty Years War, 1915–1945. Verlag für Gesellschaftskritik, Vienna 1991, ISBN 3-85115-133-X , p. 172ff.
  23. ↑ Wolfgang Neugebauer : Armed Resistance - Resistance in the Military: An Overview. In: Christine Schindler (Red.): Focus: Armed Resistance - Resistance in the Military. Yearbook of the Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance 2009, published by the Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance, LIT, Vienna Berlin Münster 2009, ISBN 978-3-643-50010-6 , p. 21.
  24. ^ Fritz Keller: In the Gulag from East and West. Karl Fischer. Worker and revolutionary. ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-88332-046-3 , p. 46.
  25. ^ Letter from Karl Fischer to his mother Maria Fischer from the Buchenwald concentration camp on September 10, 1944, in private ownership.
  26. ^ Karl Fischer, autobiography. In: Austrian Stalin Victims. Memorial. Junius-Verlags- und Vertriebsgesellschaft, Vienna 1990, ISBN 3-900370-81-8 , p. 97.
  27. ^ Fritz Keller: In the Gulag from East and West. Karl Fischer. Worker and revolutionary. ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-88332-046-3 , p. 72.
  28. ↑ a b c Maria Sterkl: “A tiny reparation”, 49 years after death. The standard from January 3, 2012.
  29. ↑ Bernhard Kuschey: The exception of survival. Ernst and Hilde Federn. A biographical study and analysis of the internal structures of the concentration camp. Psychosozial-Verlag, Giessen 2003, ISBN 3-89806-173-6 , p. 1034.
    Military Government of Germany: Questionnaire for inmates of the concentration camps - Karl Fischer. Buchenwald, May 9, 1945, Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance, No. 12815.
    International Committee of the Red Cross , International Tracing Service: Karl Fischer Detention Certificate , Arolsen (Waldeck), Germany, September 30, 1955. Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance, No. 12815.
  30. ^ Fritz Keller: In the Gulag from East and West. Karl Fischer. Worker and revolutionary. ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-88332-046-3 , p. 85.
  31. ^ Letter from Ernst Federn to Maria Johanna Fischer, the wife of Karl Fischer, Cleveland , Ohio, March 30, 1963, privately owned, see photos in the documents gallery.
  32. ^ Fritz Keller: In the Gulag from East and West. Karl Fischer. Worker and revolutionary. ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-88332-046-3 , pp. 85f.
  33. ↑ Bernhard Kuschey: The exception of survival. Ernst and Hilde Federn. A biographical study and analysis of the internal structures of the concentration camp. Psychosozial-Verlag, Giessen 2003, ISBN 3-89806-173-6 , pp. 754, 833 and 841f.
    Brigitte Bailer-Galanda , Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance (Ed.): Jüdische Schicksale. (= Story told. Reports from resistance fighters and persecuted. Volume 3) ÖBV, Vienna 1992, ISBN 3-216-06377-1 , p. 591.
  34. ^ Letter from Ernst Federn to Roland Fischer, Karl Fischer's son, dated March 27, 1992 (private property).
  35. ↑ Chronology of the Liberation: April 11, 1945 . In: Buchenwald.de, accessed on October 10, 2019.
  36. ^ Declaration by Buchenwald's internationalist communists ( memento of August 7, 2011 in the Internet Archive ).
    The Trotskyists in Buchenwald. inprekorr.de, accessed on June 12, 2016.
    Fritz Keller: Against the current. Faction fights in the KPÖ. Trotskyists and other groups 1919-1945. (= Materials on the labor movement, Volume 10) Europaverlag, Vienna 1978, ISBN 3-203-50688-2 , pp. 305f.
    Fritz Keller: To the Gulag from East and West. Karl Fischer. Worker and revolutionary. ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-88332-046-3 , pp. 149ff.
  37. ^ Fritz Keller: In the Gulag from East and West. Karl Fischer. Worker and revolutionary. ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-88332-046-3 , pp. 93 and 98.
  38. ^ Karl Fischer: Autobiography. In: Austrian Stalin Victims. Memorial. Junius-Verlags- und Vertriebsgesellschaft, Vienna 1990, ISBN 3-900370-81-8 , pp. 96-105.
  39. ^ Hugo Dewar: Assassins at Large. Being a fully documented and hithero unpublished account of the executions outside Russia ordered by the GPU. Wingate-Verlag, London & New York 1951, pp. 169ff. (English)
    John Barron : KGB. Work and organization of the Soviet secret service in East and West. Knaur-Verlag, Munich 1974, ISBN 3-426-03577-4 , p. 391.
  40. ^ Interview by Fritz Keller with Emily Rosdolsky on June 7, 1983.
  41. ^ Act on Karl Fischer in the Moscow Special Archives : Excerpt from Protocol No. 26 of the Special Commission to the Minister for State Security of the USSR, conviction decision, June 28, 1947, copy in private possession.
    Criminal offenses under Article 58 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR
    Extract from the Criminal Code of the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic of 1927
  42. ^ Thomas Kroll : Communist intellectuals in Western Europe. France, Austria, Italy and Great Britain in comparison (1945-1956). Böhlau, Vienna 2007, ISBN 3-41210-806-5 , pp. 339f.
  43. ↑ Kurt Seipel: My youth stayed in the ice of Siberia. Deported to the GULAG at the age of 19 , foreword: Gerhard Botz, Ed .: Österreichisches Literaturforum, Krems an der Donau 1997, p. 65ff, ISBN 3-900959-79-X .
  44. ↑ Kurt Seipel: My youth stayed in the ice of Siberia. Deported to the GULAG at 19 , foreword: Gerhard Botz, Ed .: Österreichisches Literaturforum, Krems an der Donau 1997, pp. 72–83, ISBN 3-900959-79-X .
  45. ^ Karl Fischer: Observations and impressions from the Russian forced labor camps 1947–1955 . Typewritten document by Karl Fischer, place and time of writing unknown. Privately owned.
  46. ^ Fritz Keller: In the Gulag from East and West. Karl Fischer. Worker and revolutionary. ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-88332-046-3 , pp. 123f.
  47. ^ Fritz Keller: In the Gulag from East and West. Karl Fischer. Worker and revolutionary. ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-88332-046-3 , p. 103ff.
  48. ↑ Bernhard Kuschey: The exception of survival. Ernst and Hilde Federn. A biographical study and analysis of the internal structures of the concentration camp. Psychosozial-Verlag, Giessen 2003, ISBN 3-89806-173-6 , p. 844.
  49. ↑ Herbert Killian : Robbed Years. An Austrian kidnapped in the GULAG. Amalthea Signum Verlag, 2nd edition, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-85002-920-4 , p. 310f.
  50. ↑ Kurt Seipel , My youth stayed in the ice of Siberia. Deported to the GULAG at 19. Foreword: Gerhard Botz , Ed .: Österreichisches Literaturforum , Krems an der Donau 1997, pp. 91 and 377.
  51. ^ Copy of the complete file on Karl Fischer from the Moscow Special Archives (private collection).
  52. ^ Portrait of Peter Matha , In: ORF Landesstudio Kärnten, accessed on March 9, 2019.
  53. ↑ Peter Matha: Archive of Tears , In: ORF Inlandsreport of March 26, 1992, video recording of the original broadcast, privately owned.
  54. ^ Fritz Keller: In the Gulag from East and West. Karl Fischer. Worker and revolutionary. ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-88332-046-3 , pp. 138f.
  55. ↑ .. Official certificate W Nr.10.239 according to Section 4 of the Victims Assistance Act of 4 July 1947 Federal Law Gazette No. 183, Municipal Department 12, Vienna, October 27, 1955; Original document in private hands.
  56. ^ Fritz Keller: In the Gulag from East and West. Karl Fischer. Worker and revolutionary. ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-88332-046-3 , pp. 144ff.
  57. ^ Karl Fischer: Autobiography . Unfinished manuscript consisting of 97 typewritten pages, place and year of writing unknown. Archived in the Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance , Vienna; Original in private ownership.
  58. ^ Marriage certificate from the registry office in Vienna- Penzing , No. 1405/56 from September 18, 1956, and marriage certificate from the parish office of Maria Hietzing , No. 1494 from September 20, 1956, both documents in private hands.
  59. ↑ Copy of the personnel file of Camp 130, Administration for the Affairs of Prisoners of War and Internees, Archive No. 109793, NKVD SSSR (People's Commissariat for the Interior of the USSR), December 2, 1944, document in private ownership.
  60. ↑ death certificate of the registry office Vienna- favorites , no. 781/1963 of 19 March 1963 document in private hands.
  61. ^ Fritz Keller: In the Gulag from East and West. Karl Fischer. Worker and revolutionary. ISP-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-88332-046-3 , p. 147.
  62. ^ Historical grave search Friedhöfe Wien , friedhoefewien.at, input: Karl Fischer, Friedhof: Südwest, year of burial: 1963, historical grave search; Grave data: Group 27, Row 4, Number 20; accessed on November 23, 2019.
  63. ↑ a b Stefan Karner: The game "cone". In: Kleine Zeitung Spezial: 1945. From the Third Reich to the Second Republic. Ed .: Christian Less, Graz 2015, ISBN 978-3-902819-48-2 , p. 142.
  64. ↑ Grave site: Field II-C, row 06, grave 04 according to the grave document of Ilz cemetery from November 19, 2019, privately owned.
  65. ^ Josef Hindels: Obituary for Karl Fischer - Fate of a Generation. On the death of Karl Fischer. In: Arbeit und Wirtschaft , trade union review, 17th year, May 1963, p. 26f.
  66. ↑ Georg Scheuer: Obituary for Karl Fischer - Fate of a Generation. On the death of Karl Fischer. In: Arbeit und Wirtschaft , trade union review, 17th year, May 1963, p. 26.
  67. ↑ General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation - Main Military Prosecutor's Office: Certificate of Rehabilitation Karl Fischer, Number 5YB-2647-56, July 15, 1997, Private Document.
  68. ↑ Repeal and Rehabilitation Act 2011 , bka.gv.at (website of the Federal Chancellery).
  69. ↑ Repeal and Rehabilitation Act - approved changes , page on help.gv.at.
  70. ↑ Harald Walser : A historic step. The standard from January 16, 2012.
  71. ↑ National Council rehabilitated victims of Austrofascism Der Standard from January 18, 2012.
  72. ^ Order of the Regional Court for Criminal Matters Vienna, October 4, 2013, number 184 Ns 2 / 12b; Privately owned document.
  73. ↑ Bernd Melichar : "Father, that would be done" . In: Holiday magazine “Home of big daughters and sons ...” on the Austrian national holiday , Kleine Zeitung of October 26, 2013, pp. 20f.
  74. ↑ ORF Ö1 -Feiertagsjournal, October 26, 2013, 12:00: Post "Late recognition"
  75. ↑ First judicial rehabilitation of the victims of Austrofascism , article on the homepage of Albert Steinhauser , the former justice spokesman and club chairman of the Greens .
personal data
SURNAME Fischer, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian Trotskyist politician and resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH September 23, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH March 17, 1963
Place of death Vienna