Kurt Hacker

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Kurt Hacker (born December 21, 1920 in Vienna ; † October 13, 2001 there ) was an Austrian police officer, resistance fighter against National Socialism and a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp . He headed the Mauthausen Memorial and was President of the International Auschwitz Committee .

Life

Hacker was drafted into the Wehrmacht during the Second World War and was employed as an interpreter for the Wehrmacht garrison in Brussels after the campaign in the West . With a socialist orientation, he was active in a resistance group that distributed conspiratorially printed anti-fascist memoranda. In the course of these activities he was arrested and received a 16-year prison sentence after a trial, which he initially spent in prisons .

As a political prisoner he was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1942 (prisoner number 130.029) and joined the camp resistance there. At the end of 1944 he belonged to a demolition team that had to dismantle the gassing facilities in the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp and pack them for transport to the Mauthausen concentration camp .

During the evacuation of the Auschwitz concentration camp in January 1945, Hacker was able to escape with four other Austrian prisoners, including Franz Danimann , and hide near the camp for a week. After the arrival of the Red Army on January 27, 1945, the five prisoners returned to the camp and helped to take care of the sick prisoners left behind in Auschwitz. Shortly afterwards, Hacker in particular, with the support of Danimann, secured evidence on the premises of the camp SS about the crimes in Auschwitz, which was handed over to Soviet officers and later handed over to an investigative commission from Moscow. Soon afterwards Hacker was able to return to Vienna with his comrades, where the liberated prisoners arrived on May 2, 1945.

On May 9, 1945, Hacker reported to the newly established Vienna Police Department, where he was able to start his service the following day. At Department I (State Police), a search department set up in June 1945 to track down war criminals, he became secretary of the department head Heinrich Dürmayer . This police unit managed to track down and arrest the former head of the camp Gestapo in Auschwitz, Maximilian Grabner, and the camp commandant of the time in the Theresienstadt ghetto, Siegfried Seidl . In addition to his police service, he completed a law degree as a student trainee. He had joined the KPÖ in the post-war period . Hacker was appointed police commissioner in 1949 and worked at the Alsergrund police station from 1950 . During the Cold War he was assigned to the security office as a left-wing officer in 1952 and eventually worked as a criminal investigator and later a lawyer at branch offices of the Vienna Federal Police Directorate. He was appointed to the Police Council in 1970, to the Senior Police Council in 1976 and finally to the Court Councilor.

From 1976 to 1986 he headed the Mauthausen Memorial as successor to Hans Maršálek . In retirement, Hacker took up a history degree. From 1997 Hacker was President of the International Auschwitz Committee (IAK). As a contemporary witness, he appeared in front of students and also gave interviews.

Hacker died of heart failure on October 13, 2001 while on his way to an IAK meeting in Heidelberg . The burial took place on November 11, 2001 at the Liesing cemetery . Hacker had been married to Gertrude, nee Toth (* 1924), since December 1945.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Susanne Kowarc: Kurt Hacker 1920 - 2001: A Viennese suburban child . In: auschwitz information. Institute for Social and Economic History, Johannes Kepler University Linz, 55th edition, December 2001, p. 2f.
  2. ^ Rudolf Kropf: The Liberation of Auschwitz . In: auschwitz information, 67th edition, January 2005, Institute for Social and Economic History, Johannes Kepler University Linz, p. 3
  3. ^ A b c Kurt Hacker: In the service of the public . In: Franz Danimann, Hugo Peppe (ed.): “Austria in April 45”, Europaverlag, Vienna / Munich / Zurich 1985, pp. 173–176.
  4. ↑ a b c d Directory of KPÖ members in the Vienna Police at www.klahrgesellschaft.at
  5. ^ Hitler Opponent, Camp Survivor, Kurt Hacker Dies in Vienna at 81 of October 17, 2001 at http://www.jta.org
  6. ↑ News in brief: Kurt Hacker, President of the IAK, has died . In: Wiener Zeitung of October 15, 2001
  7. ↑ http://www.friedhoefewien.at (to be determined via search function)
personal data
SURNAME Hacker, Kurt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian police officer, resistance fighter against National Socialism and a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp
DATE OF BIRTH December 21, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH October 13, 2001
Place of death Vienna