Karoline Redler

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Karoline Redler

Karoline Redler (born February 16, 1883 in Bregenz ; † November 8, 1944 in Vienna ; full name Karoline Maria Redler , née Schwärzler ) was a Bregenz businesswoman and social worker who was executed with a guillotine after a three-minute process for allegedly degrading military strength has been.

Schwärzler House

Youth and family

Karoline Redler's birthplace is a representative villa, known as the Pircher or Schwärzler House after the builders and owners, in the middle of Bregenz am Leutebühel. Karoline was the youngest of five children of the businessman Karl Schwärzler. She attended school in Bregenz-Thalbach and received training from the English Fräulein (a secondary school for girls) in Lindau. In 1905 she married the master tailor and fashion store owner Richard Redler (1877–1954) from Kaiserstrasse 12 and had three children Richard (* 1906), Marianne Emerich (1907–1973) and Kurt (1917–1943). A fourth child, Erich (* 1914) only lived about three months.

social commitment

In addition to her role as a businesswoman, wife and mother, Karoline Redler was very committed to social and socio-political issues and was therefore known and respected beyond Bregenz. After working for the Red Cross during the First World War, she founded the Association of Catholic Women and Girls ("the Guta"). The Guta women looked after those in need of social assistance, and a. Distribution points for food and supported poor families. Guta employees also took care of the “Mother and Child” campaign of the Austrian Patriotic Front on a voluntary basis. When the association had almost 1000 members in Bregenz, he joined the Catholic Women's Organization ("KFO"), in whose Vorarlberg section Karoline Redler was a functionary (committee member). Ms. Redler worked as chairwoman of the Guta organization until the forced dissolution in 1938.

Under observation

Even after Austria was annexed to Hitler's Germany, she openly acknowledged her political and religious convictions and was soon a thorn in the side of the new rulers. The Gestapo finally ordered a permanent observer directly in front of the house and looked for an opportunity to make an example of the so-called “black”, the indomitable prominent representative of the Christian social bourgeoisie.

State power strikes

This opportunity arose on August 24, 1943, when Ms. Redler allowed two patients from Lustenau who were loyal to the party and who raved about Hitler in the waiting room of a Hohenems alternative practitioner to talk to her. Immediately afterwards, the two NSDAP supporters reported "loyal to the people" to Untergauleiter Wehner that Ms. Redler had claimed that the air raids on German cities were only a response to German warmongering. In addition, she was critical of the current situation and doubted the "final victory".

Ms. Redler was picked up several times for one or two days and interrogated. In the interrogation, Karoline Redler denied the alleged statement and repeated this in her poignant farewell letter (see below). According to Ms. Redler's granddaughter, the partisans appearing as witnesses in court had misrepresented their grandmother's words and sometimes invented them. The truth can no longer be determined today, not even whether a trap had been set for Ms. Redler. It is noteworthy, however, that the two women later wanted to ease their conscience by trying to apologize to the bereaved for their behavior.

former Fronfeste prison in Bregenz

On October 5th, Karoline Redler was arrested and taken to the prison in the Bregenz Upper Town and placed in a cold cell without light or exchange of information. The 60-year-old woman fell ill under the poor prison conditions and was then taken to the Mehrerau sanatorium . She was then allowed to go home for a while before her next detention. The Gestapo officer installed there informed her, contrary to her husband's request, that her 23-year-old son Kurt had died in the Crimea. There is also no news from her son Richard. Richard had been secretary in the Vienna press office of the Fatherland Front and was immediately arrested because of his political views after the German troops marched in. Karoline Redler suffered a nervous breakdown, was considered incapable of detention for a while, and finally had to go to the Feldkirch prison to serve her sentence .

Karoline Redler before the court hearing

And this time for good

After the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 , the Nazi superiors eagerly sought opportunities for revenge. One year after her first arrest, Karoline Redler came under her sights again and was transferred to the People's Court at the Vienna Regional Court in August 1944. She was again accused of the falsified and disputed statement about the city bombing and demanded a revocation. Mrs. Redler refused because, in her opinion, it would have been tantamount to a confession.

Her defense attorney, appointed on the eve of the October 25 hearing, had just eight minutes to study the files. The trial itself was a farce and lasted only three minutes; then the death sentence was passed for " degrading military strength and favoring the enemy " and " loss of honorary rights " for life.

The technical equipment failed on the first attempt to enforce the sentence. The execution was postponed and Karoline Redler was put back on death row. Two weeks later the new attempt on November 8, 1944 was "successful" and the "dangerous public enemy" Karoline Redler was killed by the guillotine.

funeral

The bodies of those executed were usually made available to the Anatomical Institute for research purposes. The killing machinery in the Nazi era soon worked faster than the scientists. Because of the overstrained capacity of the Anatomical Institute, those who were executed had to be buried directly in the evening hours in a closed section of the Vienna Central Cemetery.

In 1946, her body was transferred to Bregenz and buried with great sympathy from the population.

Memorial plaque at the birthplace

memory

  • In the 1960s, the nephew Paul Schwärzler had a commemorative plaque put up at the birthplace of Karoline Redler (Pircher Haus) in Bregenz Town Hall Street, which concealed the Nazi perpetrators.
    " Karoline Redler, b. Schwärzler, died on November 8, 1944 in Vienna as a victim of violence. "
  • Karoline Redler's tombstone in Bregenz contains the inscription:
    “ Blessed are those who suffer persecution for the sake of justice because theirs     is the kingdom of heaven. "
Memorial plaque on the memorial path
  • The little lane at the theater, named in honor of Karoline Redler, was taken back in 1998 because Bregenz wanted to dedicate the new space at the Kunsthaus to the former mayor Titian. This is why a small, hidden stretch of road behind the federal high school between Wolfeggstraße and Thurn & Taxispark was given its name.
  • From the collection of letters that Karoline Redler wrote to her family during her imprisonment, here is the last:

“ […] Now the time has come and I have to write my very last letter to you all. I never really believed in a pardon. That's why the verdict doesn't come as a surprise to me. If you get this letter, I'll have suffered. Then you too will be released from the agony of hope and fear. [...] The thing that bothered me the most, the bombs, I did not say, at least I absolutely cannot remember it, it must have been a big misunderstanding, but I offer my death as an atonement. […] God bless everyone who prayed for me. You need not be ashamed of me, I am dying for my convictions. [...] "

- Karoline Redler : Farewell letter to the family before her execution
  • The author Jürgen-Thomas Ernst received the Theodor-Körner-Preis in 2001 for his play "Karoline Redler", which premiered at the Vorarlberg State Theater in 2004, and in 2002 a drama scholarship from the Federal Chancellery for the same play.

Web links

Commons : Karoline Redler  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d see web link Susanne Emerich: Portrait Karoline Redler
  2. ↑ Information on the tombstone of the family grave in Bregenz
  3. ↑ a b c d e f see web link Rätischer Bote: Karoline Redler
  4. ↑ According to legend, Mrs. Guta made it possible to relieve the city of Bregenz during the Appenzell Wars in January 1408. see Battle of Bregenz
  5. ↑ see web link Women in Motion: Karoline Redler
  6. ↑ a b c d e f see web link Eva Binder: about the arrest of her grandmother Karoline Redler
  7. ↑ however, he later managed to escape to America
personal data
SURNAME Redler, Karoline
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Victims of National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH February 16, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Bregenz
DATE OF DEATH November 8, 1944
Place of death Vienna