Conrad Loetsch

Conrad Lötsch's grave in July 2009

Conrad Lötsch (born February 19, 1878 in Aigen im Mühlkreis , Upper Austria , † July 19, 1962 in Vienna ) was an Austrian politician .

Life

Conrad Lötsch grew up in a working-class family; his father was a tailor by trade, his mother was the daughter of a small farmer family from the Bohemian Forest . When he was seven years old, the family moved to Linz in 1885 , where Lötsch spent the rest of his childhood and youth. The early death of his father in 1889, Lötsch was eleven years old, was decisive that he had to leave school and learn the trade of locksmith . As a young journeyman, he went on the usual wanderings that took him to Vienna in 1899. Here he found work in the workshop of the Vienna Northern Railway .

Lötsch's involvement in the Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP) began early, so that in 1919 he was elected chairman of the Floridsdorf Workers' and Soldiers' Council. He was also involved in the union . In the same year he was elected as a member of the SDAP in the Vienna State Parliament and City Council, of which he was a member until its dissolution in 1934.

He spent several weeks in police custody because of his advocacy of the SDAP, which was banned after the February fighting . After the attack on Adolf Hitler on July 20, 1944, many people critical of the regime were arrested in Vienna, including Conrad Lötsch, who was arrested on August 25, 1944. Nevertheless, he was released after just a few weeks in Gestapo custody.

In April 1945 Lötsch was elected deputy district chairman of Floridsdorf, an office that he only held for three months, until July 1945. In the same month he moved again as a member, this time of the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ), in the Vienna City Council. At the same time he was elected club chairman (parliamentary group chairman). His last election as the third president of the state parliament followed in 1951. Lötsch resigned as a member of the state parliament in 1954.

He was able to experience how in 1962 a residential complex on Brünner Strasse was named in his honor in Conrad-Lötsch-Hof .

Conrad Lötsch died shortly afterwards, in July 1962, at the age of 84.

It rests in an honorary grave in the Groß-Jedlersdorfer Friedhof (group 15, row 11, number 6).

About the spelling

His first name is written C onrad but also K onrad , depending on the source . Since both his gravestone indicates the variant with C , but also the courtyard named after him in the 21st Viennese district of Floridsdorf is called Conrad-Lötsch-Hof , the name Conrad is preferable.

Web links and sources

• Conrad Loetsch. In: dasrotewien.at - Web dictionary of the Viennese social democracy. SPÖ Vienna (Ed.)
• Gestapo file card at doew.at (spelling with K)