Karl Reinthaler (politician)

Karl Reinthaler (* 18th September 1913 in Villach , † 1. August 2000 ) was persecuted the Gestapo and after the end of World War II, a deputy to the parliament of Salzburg and mayor of the city Saalfelden ( Austria ), a Social Democrat and a witness .

Life

His political life's work, but in particular his personal attitude to basic attitudes to life and the social order , have made him a well-known personality - even beyond the borders of Saalfeld.

After the father lost both legs in Galicia during the First World War , the family moved to Hainfeld an der Gölsen in 1916 . There he had the opportunity to work in the boiler house. The next move to St. Pölten took place in 1918 , as there was a better place to work there. Only nine years old, Reinthaler lost his father to dysentery. These experiences shaped Reinthaler and made him a staunch pacifist .

Reinthaler made his first contacts with the Social Democratic Workers' Party during his school days. It was more by chance that he was able to join the Rote Falken and also became head of the Socialist Youth in St. Pölten. The so-called “Kinderfreunde-Haus” served as a home. Reinthaler was considered an idealist and role model.

In 1927 he passed the entrance examination for an apprenticeship position in the training workshop of the Austrian Federal Railways and learned the trade of a locksmith there . In 1931 he finished his apprenticeship, but was not taken into active service. Three years of unemployment followed . During this time he attended the “Arsenal” master craftsman's school for mechanical and electrical engineering in Vienna and kept himself afloat until 1934 as a newspaper wholesaler and educator for Kinderfreunde .

In 1934 he got a job with the Austrian Federal Railways due to his good training and qualifications . At that time, only those people were put into the service of the railroad who also belonged to a military formation. As a “red” he had few friends. His work colleagues reacted very negatively to him with words such as: “ Our home fighters are standing outside on the street and a red man is brought in front of us! "

In 1935 he was given a position in the Salzburg train transport department and in 1936, after training to be a wagon master, came to Saalfelden for six months as a “girl for everything”. Since he was not allowed to return to Salzburg after this time, he stayed in this community. In 1939 he passed the train driver exam . This year he had serious contact with the Gestapo for the first time after criticizing the invasion of Poland and expressing his lack of understanding that the Poles were "subhuman" . As a train driver, Reinthaler smuggled newspapers into the country from Switzerland and was thus able to inform himself and some like-minded people more objectively.

Reinthaler was arrested in 1942. A donation for the Red Aid was decisive after he had been under surveillance anyway. He was suspected of belonging to the illegal Communist Party. He was also denounced by the Gestapo because he put up with Hitler's "propagandistic speeches" without emotion and even allowed himself critical and skeptical remarks on them. He became prison convicted. The fact that Reinthaler survived the Amberg prison was again due to his deliberation, but also to his professional qualifications. Quote: “ If the Americans had come a week or, if you like, 14 days later, I would have been at the end of my tether too. I could only roll myself up from my bunk! "

The liberation took place on 22/23. April 1945. It was not just the release from inhumane prison conditions. In the weeks before, it was rumored that all camp inmates would be killed. After the liberation by the American troops, the prisoners remained imprisoned, although the political prisoners were allowed to move freely within the camp. He was only allowed to leave Amberg in June 1945. He first went to St. Pölten, because that is where his mother lived.

He returned to Saalfelden in the summer of 1945. This time was difficult because suddenly perpetrators were also seen as victims . The time of National Socialism in Austria was only dealt with in public much later. Oddly, the situation as described by one of his informers with a smile and the question: "Karl, as you because fared so?" Was received.

Reinthaler got his job again with the Austrian Federal Railways. The SPÖ in Salzburg made him an offer to go to the state parliament . After some deliberation, Reinthaler agreed and was sworn in as a member of the state parliament on December 12, 1945 . Reinthaler was only able to exercise this mandate for three years; severe rheumatism forced him to withdraw. He was able to resume his work after having completed a spa stay.

But now he found more time to devote himself to the political events of his home community. In addition to his political activities, he was also a trade unionist . Saalfelden he held the function as education officer and chairman was the railway workers' union. The founding of the union youth in 1955 goes back to him .

In 1952 and 1953 he graduated from the Social Academy . In 1959 Reinthaler moved the leadership of the Salzburg Chamber of Labor to buy a house in Saalfelden cheaply and to make it available to the Austrian Federation of Trade Unions . With voluntary helpers he founded the union library and finally adequate premises were available for union activities. Reinthaler organized rhetoric seminars, wrote speeches and gave lectures on his imprisonment in Amberg.

In 1960 he ended his career for health reasons. In 1966 he became Vice Mayor after he had been offered the candidacy for mayor in 1959 . At that time, however, he was neither in a healthy position nor could he have been given appropriate leave of absence from work. So then was Adam Pichler elected mayor. In 1972, Karl Reinthaler was elected mayor of the market town of Saalfelden with an absolute SPÖ majority in the local council. During his term of office, the HTL ( Higher Technical College ) and the HBLA (Higher Federal College for Business Professions) were founded. Large-scale residential construction began in the so-called "Bergland-Siedlung".

In the municipal council election in 1978 Reinthaler could not run for re-election for health reasons. His successor was Walter Schwaiger (SPÖ).

Saalfelden 2004
Karl Reinthaler House

In the following years, Karl Reinthaler became increasingly active in coming to terms with the past. Wherever he could, he appeared as a contemporary witness and the 1986 Waldheim affair brought this inglorious past back into the public eye. Even the Wehrmacht exhibition , which was shown in March 1998 in Salzburg, Reinthaler went back into the public eye and tried as a witness to its past help.

Karl Reinthaler died on August 1st, 2000 as a result of an accident. In 2003 the municipality of Saalfelden bought the trade union home on Bahnhofstrasse, revitalized it and named it "Karl-Reinthaler-Haus" after the pioneer of the workers' movement in Saalfelden.

literature

• Sabine Aschauer-Smolik, Alexander Neunherz: Karl Reinthaler - hold against it. A life story between breaks and continuities in the province. StudienVerlag, Innsbruck et al. 2004, ISBN 3-7065-1976-3 .
• Walter Thaler (Ed.): Strongly affected - little respected. Social democracy in Salzburg communities. Talks with Salzburg mayors (= series of publications by the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Sozialdemokratischer Gemeindevetereter (ASG) Salzburg. 1). Working Group of Social Democratic Community Representatives (ASG) Salzburg, Salzburg 1999.

Web links

• Literature by and about Karl Reinthaler in the catalog of the German National Library
• http://www.bz-saalfelden.salzburg.at
• http://www.degenhalten.at