Ludwig Soswinski

Ludwig Soswinski (born January 15, 1905 in Vienna ; † February 9, 1997 there ) was an Austrian resistance fighter against National Socialism , lawyer, politician, anti-fascist and concentration camp prisoner . After the Nazi era, he was a functionary in several Nazi victim associations and co-founder and vice-president of the documentation archive of the Austrian resistance .

Life

Soswinski was the son of a typesetter in the Vienna State Printing Office . He graduated at the end of his school career studying law at the University of Vienna and was there to study the end of 1929 to Dr. jur. PhD . After the court year he was auditor of the consumer cooperative in the central association of Austrian consumer associations . Even during his studies he worked as a functionary in the social democratic student body . Then he was platoon commander of the Academic Legion with the Republican Protection Association .

After the armed uprising in mid-February 1934 against the Austro-Fascist corporate state under Engelbert Dollfuss , he joined the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ), which was illegal at the time, and was therefore arrested in 1937 at the latest and given an amnesty in February 1938 . After Austria was " annexed " to the National Socialist German Reich , Soswinski was arrested by the Gestapo on March 13, 1938 and sent to the Dachau concentration camp on April 1, 1938 as part of the so-called transport of celebrities . From the end of September 1939 to the beginning of March 1940 he was transferred to the Flossenbürg concentration camp and returned to Dachau at the beginning of March 1940.

In Dachau, after a few months, Soswinski became a Kapo in the “Schubraum paymaster's office”, where he was busy with the administration of prisoner accounts. Soswinski was involved in transferring money from the accounts of wealthy inmates - with their knowledge - to the accounts of destitute inmates so that they could also shop in the camp canteen. After these financial transactions were uncovered by members of the camp SS in the spring of 1940 , the members of the paymaster's command were placed in darkened individual cells in the camp bunker for 45 days by order of the protective custody camp leader Egon Zill and were then assigned to the punishment company for a year . In January 1944, Soswinski was transferred to the Majdanek concentration camp and, after the camp was closed in July 1944, to the main camp of Auschwitz .

Soswinski was a prison functionary and belonged to the Austrian resistance group established in 1942 in the main camp. Other members of the resistance group were Alfred Klahr , Hermann Langbein , Ernst Burger , Rudolf Friemel and Ludwig Vesely . In May 1943, the Auschwitz combat group emerged from the Austrian resistance group and the Polish camp resistance . Soswinski was part of the international management of the KGA from autumn 1944 . After the "evacuation" of the Auschwitz concentration camp, Soswinski ended up in the Mauthausen concentration camp , where he was again a member of the camp resistance. He was liberated in Mauthausen in May 1945.

After the war ended , Soswinski married the Auschwitz survivor Herta Soswinski , née Mehl. He was the deputy chairman of the credit steering commission and was also a member of the General Council of the Austrian National Bank until 1948 , among other things, he dealt with the reintroduction of the schilling . From 1945 to 1958 he was a member of the Vienna City Council and the State Parliament . Together with his wife, he left the KPÖ after 1968. Since the liberation from National Socialism , he has also been involved in the interests of former resistance fighters and victims of National Socialism . From 1955 he was chairman of the regional association in the Federal Association of Austrian Resistance Fighters and a victim of fascism and from 1964 he worked in the same function in the federal association. In addition, he became Vice President of the International Federation of Resistance Fighters (FIR), founded the working group of victims' associations in Austria and was chairman of the Mauthausen camp community. In 1963 he co-founded the Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance (DÖW). He eventually became vice president of that organization. From 1980 he was involved in the transfer of the DÖW to a foundation and worked there as a curator until the foundation council was established (1984).

Awards

• Silver Medal for Services to the State of Vienna (1971)
• Great Decoration of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria (1980)
• Decoration of Honor in Gold for Services to the State of Vienna (1987)
• Great Cross of Merit First Class Federal Republic of Germany
• Medal of Honor for Services to the Liberation of Austria (1977)
• Medal of honor in gold of the Association of War Victims and Disabled People for Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland

literature

• Felix Czeike : Historical Lexicon Vienna . Volumes 1–5 [and supplementary volume], Kremayr & Scheriau , Vienna 1992–2004, ISBN 3-218-00543-4 / ISBN 3-218-00544-2 / ISBN 3-218-00545-0 / ISBN 3-218- 00546-9 / ISBN 3-218-00547-7 / ISBN 978-3-218-00741-2 (supplementary volume 2004).
• Comité International de Dachau ; Barbara Distel , Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial (ed.): Dachau Concentration Camp 1933 to 1945 - Text and photo documents for the exhibition. Munich 2005, ISBN 3-87490-750-3 .

Web links

• Picture of Ludwig Soswinski as a prisoner in Dachau

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k} Felix Czeike: Historisches Lexikon Wien. Volume 6 (supplementary volume), Vienna 2004, p. 219.
2. ^ Bertrand Perz : The Mauthausen Memorial from 1945 to the present . StudienVerlag, Innsbruck 2006, ISBN 3-7065-4025-8 , p. 315.
3. ↑ Ludwig Soswinski: We were "Weana" . Documentation archive of the Austrian resistance.
4. ↑ Soswinski, Ludwig on doew.at.
5. ^ Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site: Self-assertion and solidarity. Online at hdbg.de (PDF; 401 kB).
6. ^ Rudolf Kropf: The Liberation of Auschwitz. (PDF; 80 kB) Institute for Social and Economic History, Johannes Kepler University Linz, January 2005, p. 3 , archived from the original on March 11, 2005 ; accessed on July 20, 2019 . 
7. ^ Henryk Świebocki: The "Kampfgruppe Auschwitz". In: Wacław Długoborski, Franciszek Piper (ed.): Auschwitz 1940–1945. Studies on the history of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. Oswiecim 1999, III. Tape resistance. P. 155.
8. ↑ ^{a b} Dr. Ludwig Soswinski in memory. In: The freedom fighter . 1, March 1997, p. 4. Online at oevp-kameradschaft.at (PDF; 3.27 MB).
9. ↑ ^{a b} Sylvia Soswinski: Soswinski Herta, geb. Flour; Resistance fighter and political activist. In: Ilse Korotin (ed.): BiografıA. Lexicon of Austrian Women. Volume 3: P-Z. Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2016, ISBN 978-3-205-79590-2 , p. 3107.