Michael Heindl

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Michael Heindl (born on September 29, 1901 in Vienna ; died on March 13, 1944 there ) was an Austrian railroad worker and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime . He was sentenced to death by the Nazi judiciary on November 27, 1943, together with his brother Franz Heindl and four other resistance fighters , and three months later he was executed with the guillotine in the Vienna Regional Court .

Life

Street sign of the Brüder-Heindl-Gasse in Vienna

Heindl was a railroad worker and was an active member of the Communist Party of Austria . He was arrested and interrogated by the Vienna Gestapo together with his five years younger brother Franz Heindl , an unskilled worker . The charge was "preparation for high treason ". The Heindl brothers - together with comrades Franz Anderle , Franz Hauer , Therese Klostermann and Max Schrems - were sentenced to death by the People's Court on November 27, 1943 .

The reasons for the judgment read:

“The defendants Klostermann, the Heindl brothers, Franz Hauer, Anderle and Schrems fell in the back of the hard-fighting front because they tried to destroy the home front as officials of the Communist Party until the end of 1942. Such deeds can only be atoned for with death. The National Socialist state would give up itself if it did not permanently exclude people who were consciously working for communism in the fourth year of the war from the German national community. "

- People's Court : Death sentence against six Hietzinger and Liesinger resistance fighters, November 27, 1943

On March 13, 1944, the brothers Franz and Michael Heindl were executed by guillotine in the execution room of the Vienna Regional Court . Together with the brothers, 14 other resistance fighters were murdered by the Nazi regime that day, including their co-defendants Franz Anderle, Franz Hauer and Therese Klostermann. The sixth defendant, Max Schrems, was beheaded on April 7, 1944.

The two brothers were not only arrested, convicted, and executed together, they were also buried in the same grave - in the shaft graves of Group 40 (row 24 / grave 204) of the Vienna Central Cemetery .

Commemoration

Freedom fighter memorial at Atzgersdorf cemetery, erected in 1954

The two brothers can also be found in the list of Liesinger Victims of National Socialism 1938–1945 of the Stones of Remembrance Initiative in Liesing , and plans to erect two memorial stones in front of the house at Parkgasse 18.

Sources and literature

  • Alfred-Klahr-Gesellschaft : On the history of the Communist Youth Association 1918–1945 , accessed on May 15, 2015
  • Felix Czeike : Historical Lexicon Vienna . Vienna: Verlag Kremayr & Scheriau 1992–2004
  • Documentation archive of the Austrian resistance : no longer anonymous , with three photos from the identification files of the Gestapo Vienna, accessed on May 16, 2015
  • Willi Weinert: “You can put me out, but not the fire”: a guide through the grove of honor of Group 40 at the Vienna Central Cemetery for the executed resistance fighters . Verlag Alfred-Klahr-Ges., 2005

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Brüder-Heindl-Gasse in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna
  2. ^ Peter Autengruber : Lexicon of Viennese street names. Meaning, origin, background information, previous designation (s). Vienna Pichler-Verlag, 9th edition 2014, 55
  3. ^ Postwar Justice , accessed May 15, 2015
  4. ↑ Liesingen Victims of National Socialism 1938–1945 , accessed on September 11, 2017
personal data
SURNAME Heindl, Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian railway worker and resistance fighter against National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH September 29, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH March 13, 1944
Place of death Vienna