Karl Lederer (resistance fighter)

Karl Lederer (born September 22, 1909 in Vienna ; † May 10, 1944 there ) was an Austrian lawyer and resistance fighter against the Third Reich .

Life

Karl Lederer studied law at the University of Vienna and graduated in 1933 with a doctorate in law. Then he got a job with the financial procurator in Vienna.

When Member of Parliament Kurt Schuschnigg founded the Christian Defense Association Ostmärkische Sturmscharen in 1930 , Lederer was one of the first members. In 1936 he joined the Fatherland Front in order to work against the annexation of Austria to the Third Reich.

In February 1939, after the annexation of Austria, Lederer was dismissed from civil service as a “Jewish half-breed”. Lederer founded the resistance group Austrian Freedom Movement , with which he produced and distributed anti-Nazi leaflets. In 1940 he made the acquaintance of the Augustinian canon Roman Karl Scholz from Klosterneuburg , who also led a resistance group called the Austrian freedom movement. In the same year the two groups agreed to work closely together.

In the summer of 1940 this group was betrayed and all members were arrested. Lederer was sentenced to death by the People's Court .

literature

• Steiner:  Lederer Karl. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 5, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1972, p. 83.
• Peter Csendes (Ed.): Resistance and persecution in Vienna 1934–1945. A documentation. Österreichischer Bundesverlag, Vienna 1975.
• Herbert Exenberger : Commemoration and reminders in Vienna 1934–1945. Memorials to resistance and persecution, exile, liberation. Deuticke, Vienna 1998, ISBN 3-216-30330-6 .
• Ulrich Bons: The Anrath prison in the Third Reich, the attempt at a reconstruction . In: Heimatbuch des Kreis Viersen 2002, Viersen 2001, pp. 161–179. Karl Lederer was a prisoner in Anrath prison from June 1941.