Luise Kanitz

Luise Kanitz (* as Luise Lebensaft on July 5, 1908 in Vienna ; † September 20, 1976 there ) was an Austrian pianist and resistance fighter .

Luise Lebensaft was born in Vienna as the daughter of an employee; she was the cousin of the footballer Heinrich Lebensaft . After attending elementary and community school , she completed a music degree at a higher education institution. She then became a state-certified pianist.

In 1930 she married the concert agent Ernst Kanitz. After Austria was "annexed" to the German Empire , her husband fled to France because of his Jewish origins. However, he was later picked up there and deported to Auschwitz on September 7, 1942 , where he was murdered.

After fleeing her husband Luise Kanitz tried the new rulers resistance to oppose. In December 1939, through Gerhard Fischer-Ledenice , she came into contact with the resistance group Austrian Freedom Movement around Roman Karl Scholz , and swore an oath thereon in February 1940. As the women's leader , she was entrusted with setting up and leading the women's group. She became a close confidante of Scholz and took part in weekly meetings of the leadership group. She used Mucki and Lou as aliases . She also took an active part in the group's actions, for example in June 1940 when she was scouting a Wehrmacht ammunition depot in the Halterbachtal , she distracted the guards with a feigned fainting spell in order to allow her comrades to enter. The knowledge gained should be useful if the depot was to be blown up later. The plan to came from the Gestapo - spy and agent provocateur Otto Hartmann , who had managed to be included in the leadership group of the movement. As a result of his betrayal, Luise Kanitz was arrested along with other leading members of the movement on July 23, 1940. She was held in the Rossauerlände until December 1940 and then transferred to the regional court.

On February 23, 1944 she was with other members of the resistance group in a process of people's court for conspiracy to commit high treason to six years ' imprisonment and loss of honor law sentenced to six years. In February 1945 she was released from prison due to the course of the war. Her health suffered from imprisonment, which meant that she was unable to continue her career as a piano player.

In November 1947 she was the main witness in the people's court proceedings against Otto Hartmann.

literature

• Elisabeth Lebensaft: Kanitz, Luise. In: Ilse Korotin (ed.): BiografıA. Lexicon of Austrian Women. Volume 2: I-O. Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2016, ISBN 978-3-205-79590-2 , p. 1560 f.

Web links

• E. Lebensaft: Kanitz, Luise. In: ÖBL online edition . March 1, 2011 . 
• Elisabeth Lebensaft: Kanitz, married couple. In: Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon . May 6, 2001 . 

supporting documents

1. ↑ Hans Schafranek : Resistance and betrayal. Gestapo spies in the anti-fascist underground 1938–1945 . Czernin, Vienna 2017, ISBN 978-3-7076-0622-5 , p. 215 f .