Oscar Pollak

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Residential complex in Floridsdorf

Oscar Pollak (born October 7, 1893 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary ; † August 28, 1963 in Hinterstoder , Upper Austria) (pseudonyms: O. Paul, Austriacus) was an Austrian journalist . He was Marianne Pollak's husband .

Life and activity

Pollak was the son of a merchant. He studied law at the University of Vienna and took part in the First World War from 1914 to 1918 , which was a decisive experience for him. After the war he graduated as Dr. jur. and then turned to journalism.

Influenced by the war experience, Pollak had already joined the social democracy in 1918 and became a member of the Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP).

From 1920 Pollak was editor of the social democratic party newspaper Arbeiter-Zeitung , which he initially remained until 1923. He was responsible for sports and community coverage. From 1923 to 1926 he worked in the Secretariat of the Socialist International in London under Friedrich Adler , from where he also reported as a correspondent for the Arbeiterzeitung. After his return to Austria in 1926, he rejoined the editorial staff of the Arbeiterzeitung, for which he took over the position of foreign policy editor until 1931.

On July 7, 1931, Pollak succeeded Friedrich Austerlitz as editor-in-chief of the Arbeiterzeitung . He held this post until the Social Democratic press was violently suppressed by the Dollfuss government in 1934 and the workers' newspaper was banned from it. In the months preceding the smashing of the social democratic movement in the Alpine republic, he had taken part in organizing the resistance against the Dollfussian system. Under Pollak's aegis, the workers' newspaper was transformed from a paper characterized by its high intellectual quality into a popular organ. He justified this step by saying that in this way he wanted to satisfy the public's interest in sensation and develop a greater political impact.

Immediately before the editorial office of the Arbeiterzeitung was occupied on February 12, 1934, Pollak went underground. From September 1934 to May 1935 Pollak was the editorial director of the illegal magazine Die Revolution .

In 1934 Pollak went to Brno in Czechoslovakia as an exile , where he worked as Otto Bauer's press officer . In 1936 he moved to Brussels, where he worked in the secretariat of the Socialist Workers' International. In addition, he participated in the establishment of the diplomatic mission of Austrian socialists ( AVOES ) in Brussels and published the international information correspondence there . In 1938 Pollak moved to the Paris headquarters of the International. After Bauer's death in July 1938, he became editor of the monthly Der Sozialistische Kampf , the organ of the Austrian Social Democrats living in exile.

In view of the German occupation of France in 1940, Pollak and his wife fled to Portugal via southern France and Spain, from where they reached the United States on an American ship. From there he obtained a permit to travel to Great Britain in order to work against the Nazi system from there. He ended up in London, where he lived in the house of the writer Brailsford and worked as a monitor for the United Press news agency . He also wrote articles directed against the Nazi regime under pseudonyms for British newspapers such as the Observer . He became politically active by taking over the management of the London office of Austrian socialists together with Karl Czernetz . Furthermore, he worked closely with the British secret service SOE and the American secret service OSS during the war years, with whom he planned propaganda and subversive activities in his home country and was involved in the selection of agents who were to be dispatched to these countries.

After his emigration, Pollak was classified by the National Socialist police as an enemy of the state: In the spring of 1940 the Reich Main Security Office in Berlin placed him on the special wanted list GB , a list of people who would be succeeded by the occupying forces in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British Isles by the Wehrmacht Special SS commandos were to be identified and arrested with special priority.

Oscar and Marianne Pollak's grave

After the Second World War, Pollack returned to Austria. He arrived in Vienna on October 17, 1945 after being the first emigrant to receive special permission from the British authorities to return. On the recommendation of the British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin , he was able to take over the editor-in-chief of the newly founded workers' newspaper in 1946 , which he retained until 1961, when he was retired. He was also the editorial secretary of Der Kampf magazine . Politically he emerged through leading participation in the reorganization of the Socialist Party. In terms of content, he represented a decidedly anti-communist and pro-Western line in the post-war years. He also came forward with the demand for a general federation of European workers' organizations.

In the later years of his life, Pollak was president of the International Press Institute he founded from 1956 to 1958, and from 1961 to 1963 editor-in-chief of the magazine Die Zukunft . He converted this from a monthly to a half-monthly.

Pollak died of heart failure in 1963. Shortly thereafter, his wife took her own life because she did not want to be separated from him. Both were cremated and buried together. Her honorary grave is located in the urn grove of the Simmering fire hall (Department ML, Group 20B, Grave No. 1G).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jürgen Doll: Theater im Roten Wien , 1997, p. 219.
  2. ^ Entry on Pollack on the special wanted list GB (reproduced on the website of the Imperial War Museum in London.)

Awards

Works

  • The ABC of the International , 1928.
  • In the trenches of the class struggle , 1929.
  • Farewell France , 1941.
  • Underground Europe calling , 1942.
  • It all started in Vienna , 1944.
  • Against the internal Nazi , 1946.
  • The new humanism. Spirit and society at the turn of an era , 1962.
  • Otto Pollak. Fighter for freedom and justice. A selection of his essays , Vienna 1964 (edited by Karl Ausch)

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Pollak, Oscar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian journalist
DATE OF BIRTH October 7, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH August 28, 1963
Place of death Hinterstoder , Upper Austria