Karl Knapp (politician)

Memorial plaque for Karl Knapp

Karl Knapp (born November 26, 1888 in Vienna , † December 4, 1944 in Dachau concentration camp , Bavaria , Germany ) was an Austrian politician ( SPÖ ).

Life

Karl Knapp joined the postal service after attending compulsory school ; from 1908 he worked in the company's accounting department . In 1919 Knapp became deputy chairman of the postal workers' union, which was to be followed by the election of chairman in 1932.

On December 21, 1933, he entered the Federal Council as a social democratic member ( fourth legislative period ), to which, however, he was to belong for just under two months, until February 17, 1934. In 1934, Knapp was arrested for the first time for advocating the banned social democracy and imprisoned for three and a half months in the Vienna Regional Court.

Even after the annexation of Austria , Knapp was under surveillance by the Gestapo . Knapp initially found work as an employee in a watch factory in the Viennese district of Döbling ; later he worked as a caretaker .

Because he was accused of having contacts with social democrats abroad, Knapp was arrested by the Gestapo in November 1944 and deported to the Dachau concentration camp. The exact circumstances of his death are not known, but he is said to have died on December 4, 1944 as a result of the prison conditions.

In 1961, the Karl-Knapp-Hof was inaugurated in the Ottakring district of Vienna ; on November 28, 2013, the former postal union building at Biberstrasse 5 was named after him and a plaque was unveiled there.

literature

• Karl Knapp. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 3, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1965, p. 432.

Web links

• Karl Knapp on the website of the Austrian Parliament
• Karl Knapp. In: dasrotewien.at - Web dictionary of the Viennese social democracy. SPÖ Vienna (Ed.)