Memorial for the Victims for a Free Austria 1934–1945
The memorial of the City of Vienna is a memorial at the Vienna Central Cemetery and is dedicated to "the victims for a free Austria 1934–1945". It was donated by the City of Vienna , designed by Fritz Cremer , Wilhelm Schütte and Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky , and presented to the public by Mayor Theodor Körner on November 1, 1948 .
dedication
The memorial consists of three statues by Fritz Cremer , seven floor slabs and a brick arch. The first of the seven floor tiles is dedicated to the victims of Austrofascism (1934–1938), the second to sixth to the victims of one year of the Nazi regime , the seventh and last to the victims of 1944 and 1945.
The dedication expressly refers to both authoritarian systems that had oppressed and terrorized Austria's population for twelve years: the corporate state (1933–1938), which was based on fascist ideas, and Adolf Hitler's Nazi terror regime, which was dominated by racial madness and expansionism . The Arbeiter-Zeitung wrote explicitly of a dedication for the victims who “fell between 1934 and 1945 in the struggle for a free Austria” and named the first victims Georg Weissel , Koloman Wallisch , Karl Münichreiter and Emil Swoboda , all of them social democratic leaders of the February Uprising . Although the outrage of the Social Democrats over the brutality of the Fatherland Front is understandable, equality between the two regimes does not appear historically legitimate. The Dollfuss / Schuschnigg - dictatorship caused Although political death toll in the hundreds, the Nazis , however, committed mass murder and industrial destruction of over 106,900 innocent Austrians and Austrians, from toddlers to up Greis: 65,000 Jewish citizens of Austria fell to the Holocaust victims, around 9,000 Roma and Sinti dem Porajmos , around 25,000 of the Nazi medical crimes , more than 7,000 of the persecution of politically dissenters and, in addition, more than 900 of the persecution by the Nazi military justice . This list does not take into account those same-sex- oriented people who were also persecuted with concentration camps and murder , the so-called anti - socials and Jehovah's Witnesses .
The dedication of the memorial is ambiguous: the name implies all groups of victims, the subtitle “To the victims for a free Austria” reduces the target group to only those who actively resisted. However, most of the victims of the Holocaust , Porajmos , eugenics , gay and religious persecution were unable to resist. It is therefore not surprising that most of the groups of victims did not feel represented in this memorial and that further memorials were requested at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. After the zero hour it was a special concern of the founders of the Second Republic and its victim myth to commemorate “the champions for a free Austria”, especially since the existence of a well-known inner-Austrian resistance to National Socialism in the Moscow Declaration of 1943 expressly as a precondition for restoration the state sovereignty of Austria was mentioned.
The donor of the monument is the City of Vienna, which is why it is also known as the Memorial of the City of Vienna . The memorial can be found at Vienna's Central Cemetery, Gate 2, Group 41, Rundplatz. The official address is Simmeringer Hauptstraße 234 in Vienna-Simmering .
Construction, design, opening
The Vienna City Senate decided on October 30, 1945 to erect a monument to the City of Vienna for those "who died in the fight against Nazi fascism and for a free, independent Austria", which was originally to be erected in the city center. The KPÖ, on the other hand, wanted to erect a memorial for its members murdered by the Nazi regime at the central cemetery and announced its own competition, which Ernst Plojhar won. In October 1946, the Vienna KPÖ applied to the city senate for the property at the central cemetery to be used for their memorial. After the communists had only gained 7.9 percent in the state and municipal council elections on November 25, 1945, while the SPÖ had a sovereign majority of 57.18 percent, the communists' effectiveness was essentially extinguished.
On December 18, 1946, the Vienna City Building Office announced a competition for a memorial for the Nazi victims at the central cemetery , in which Fritz Cremer , Mario Petrucci and Fritz Wotruba participated, as well as Karl Stemolak , who later resigned. The jury consisted of Deputy Mayor Paul Speiser , three city councilors, two visual artists, two senior civil servants from the city building department and three representatives from the regional association of the politically persecuted . The committee agreed unanimously in favor of the Red Circle design , which had been submitted by the German sculptor and communist Fritz Cremer and the Austrian architect couple Wilhelm Schütte and Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky , both KPÖ members. Thus the communists were reassured, but an independent KPÖ memorial was averted.
The foundation stone was laid on November 1, 1947 by the then mayor Theodor Körner , who later became President of the Republic of Austria. The ceremonial unveiling of the memorial took place on November 1, 1948, again by Körner. A trumpet choir from the City of Vienna and the male choir of the municipal tram drivers provided the musical framework for the ceremony, with the assistance of four brass players from the municipal tram band.
Web link
- Vienna Central Cemetery , National Memorial
Individual evidence
- ^ Post-war justice : Memorial of the City of Vienna , accessed on May 18, 2015
- ↑ For the victims from 1934 to 1945. Unveiling of the sacrificial memorial in the central cemetery - a grave memorial for Weissel . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna October 27, 1948, p. 3 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
- ^ Claudia Kuretsidis-Haider ( DÖW ): Subject: History . Dealing with the troubled past. Persecution and research of perpetrators in Austria. Designed by Martin Adel. Ö1 , May 18, 2015, 5:55 p.m.
- ↑ City Hall correspondence, October 30, 1945
Coordinates: 48 ° 8 ′ 56.4 " N , 16 ° 26 ′ 31.6" E