Richard Bernaschek

Richard Bernaschek (born June 12, 1888 in Elisabethdorf near Budapest ; † April 18, 1945 in Mauthausen concentration camp ) was an Austrian politician (party secretary of the SDAP of Upper Austria), resistance fighter and Schutzbund leader . He was one of the main characters in the Austrian Civil War , which broke out in the Hotel Schiff in Linz on February 12, 1934 and which quickly spread to Vienna and industrial regions such as Steyr and Upper Styria .

Early years

Richard Bernaschek's father was called Wenzel Bernášek, was a shoemaker and came from Kařez , Rokycany district ( Bohemia ). His mother was Antonie Bernášková, née Hruška, from Suchdorf. Both had been expelled from Bad Vöslau , Lower Austria, by the Austrian authorities on February 6, 1884 . The family wanted to return to Austria and with a letter from the imperial and royal district captain of Baden dated September 3, 1900, the deportation was revoked and a return to the deportation area was permitted. The family then settled in Linz / Urfahr. Richard Bernaschek had three siblings, the sisters Aurelia and Margarete and the brother Ludwig .

Richard Bernaschek first attended five classes in the elementary school and three classes in the community school in Budapest and then in Linz. He learned the metalworking trade and the lathe profession at the Posselt machine fitter in Linz. After that he led an unsteady life and worked professionally in Linz, Steyr, Budapest and Vienna. On June 11, 1911, he married Marie Eisenhuber; Of the four children from this marriage two survived, namely Eleonore, called Ella (married Leschanz), and Richard. As can be seen from his records after his arrest in 1934, Bernaschek was later divorced. At the beginning of the First World War, he joined the Korneuburg Railway and Telegraph Regiment. In 1917 he was promoted to the reserve corporal and was taken prisoner in Italy on November 3, 1918 in Trieste. On August 16, Benaschek returned to Linz. In his land register sheet there are entries in Czech and it is stated that Bernaschek (Bernášek) belonged to Kařez in Bohemia; his membership in the Czechoslovak armed forces did not expire until 1923.

Political activity

Bernaschek joined the Social Democratic Party (SDAP) in Austria early on and was an active member of the metalworkers' union. On February 9, 1920 he was elected first deputy chairman of the Upper Austrian workers' council, which also included eleven communists. In 1921 Bernaschek left Austria for two years; his younger sister Margarete had found him a job in Holland. In the spring of 1923 he was called back to Linz by Deputy Governor Gruber to promote the establishment of the Republican Protection Association , a paramilitary organization of the Social Democratic Party , in Upper Austria. From 1926 he was the regional leader of the Upper Austrian Schutzbund, which was uniformed and armed based on the military model. Schutzbund members who had not served in the military received their shooting training in so-called workers' rifle clubs.

In 1926 Bernaschek was able to take part in the first half-year course at the so-called workers' college in Vienna in the rooms of the Maria-Theresien-Schlössel . He came into contact with the most important leaders of the Social Democrats (including Karl Renner , Adolf Schärf , Theodor Körner , Friedrich Adler , Otto Bauer , Alexander Eifler , Otto Neurath ), who, as lecturers, gave the course participants an intensive ideological training. Bernaschek's already known stance as a “leftist” among the Social Democrats was consolidated.

On March 4, 1933, the so-called self-elimination of the parliament took place in Vienna and on March 15, 1933, large German and social democratic members of parliament were prevented from entering the parliament by police force or those who were already in parliament were escorted out by the police. As a result, the Republican Schutzbund was dissolved on March 31, 1933. Bernaschek wrote on the occasion: “When the surprising instruction came not to offer any resistance on March 31, the Schutzbunds ran around with their faces flushed with shame. But they saved the weapons and burned the documents. ”However, the Republican Protection Association was only dissolved in terms of form, the military exercises and meetings were continued under the guise of sporting events ( ASKÖ ), hikes, driving courses, etc. However, it proved difficult to maintain the militant vigor of earlier years, the credibility of the Marxist-oriented Social Democratic Party was shaken among its supporters because of its passive attitude towards the March events of 1933, the number of members began to crumble and part of the working class migrated to NSDAP from. It is probably wrong to attribute the attractiveness of the NSDAP to the workers solely to the unemployment situation, the economic problems in Austria and the alleged economic successes in Nazi Germany; As can be seen from a letter from Bernaschek to the party leadership ("The attitude of the party in the last ten months, since the memorable parliamentary session, has been traced back to the Jewish leadership, which cannot decide to fight."), were at the meetings also anti-Semitic statements loudly (leading members of the SDAP like Otto Bauer were known to be Jews) and the ideology of National Socialism accommodated these tendencies better than the Marxist teaching of the SDAP.

The events of February 12, 1934

One of the previous events of February 12, 1934, was the fact that the police had repeatedly discovered illegal arms transports from Czechoslovakia and weapons depots. For example, on January 24, 1934 , a large arsenal with rifles, machine guns, hand grenades and large quantities of explosives was excavated in Schwechat. The explosives would have been sufficient to blow up the government buildings in downtown Vienna from the sewer system, as was planned by Major Eifler in the war plan of the Schutzbund. The “ Hotel Schiff ” and other bases of the Republican Schutzbund had already been searched for weapons in 1931 and the party leadership under Gruber had hardly reacted to the removal of the weapons. Even on February 10, 1934, there had been a search for weapons in Steyr, during which a company chairman had been arrested for a short time without this having any further-reaching consequences.

On February 11, 1934, Bernaschek had consulted with his closest colleagues ( Ludwig Bernaschek , Ferdinand Hüttner, Otto Huschka, Franz Schlagin, Franz Schrangl and Josef Glasner) and decided that it was, by the way, a Mardi Gras Sunday, when searching for weapons on Monday with " violent resistance ... and in continuation of the resistance to attack ” . “This decision cannot be changed” , he added in his letter to the leadership of the Social Democratic Party. This letter was found in the Hotel Schiff along with a handwritten note from Bernaschek with the content “provoke weapons search”. On the night of February 11th to 12th, he had given orders to occupy strategically important points in and around Linz (restaurant “Jägermeier” on Freinberg, Spatzenkogel, Diesterwegschule, Petrinum, gasworks, utility yard, railway bridge, Kaplanhof). As can be seen from the memories of Security Director Hammerstein-Equord, weapons searches were planned, but the executive did not know where to begin; thought was of the park pool, where the unloading of suspicious boxes had been observed. With a strangely encrypted telegram ( "Aunt is fine, the doctors and Uncle Otto are of the opinion that nothing should be done. Bernaschek should come to Vienna immediately." ), Which was intended for an address in the Hotel Schiff made, the party home of the Social Democrats now came into the focus of attention. Hammerstein then called Viktor Benz , the police director of Linz, who lived next to the Hotel Schiff and who himself had noticed suspicious transports there during the night. This made it clear where the search for weapons should begin the next day.

As is well known, Bernaschek did not inform the leadership of the Social Democratic Party of Upper Austria when making his decision. The signal from the party leadership from Vienna was clear: they did not want an uprising. In addition, there is a special tragedy that the three parties (Christian Socialists, Social Democrats, Greater Germans) were democratically elected in the Upper Austrian state parliament and worked together more or less prosperously in a proportional government led by Governor Schlegel . Despite the situation at federal level, the state parliament was still a haven of democracy and the uprising was used as a result of the events of February 12th to abolish this last bastion of democracy.

Around 7:00 a.m., the police began the search with around 30 police officers led by police officers Hofer and Petrich. At 7.15 a.m., Bernaschek asked Governor Dr. Josef Schlegel asked for intervention, but he could no longer stop the process because he was no longer responsible for the security department. Shortly afterwards, the police broke into the Hotel Schiff and Bernaschek and two other Social Democrats were arrested at 7.45 am and taken out of the building to the arrestant's car. Bernaschek tried to escape on the street, but was quickly caught again and arrested. After Bernaschek was arrested, there was an exchange of fire between a machine gunner holed up on the upper floor and the police. The machine gunner Rudolf Kunz was killed in the course of further fighting, which only ended around noon and with the use of the federal army.

Before his arrest, Bernaschek had alerted the Schutzbund in Steyr, Wels, Vöcklabruck and in the coal district and called them to arms. At the same time he tried to destroy incriminating documents. Heavy fighting broke out in Upper Austria, which the executive ( federal army , gendarmerie, assistant troops) could not put down until February 13th. Riots broke out in Vienna and other federal states as well, and by February 15, calm was restored. These battles went down in history as the February 1934 Uprising or the “Austrian Civil War”. However, no general strike was called and even the railroad workers 'and post office workers' unions, which were close to the Republican Protection Association, did not intervene in the event. In addition, the executive also proved to be loyal to the state and the expected defectors did not exist.

Exile and late years

On the night of April 3, 1934, the National Socialist-minded prison director, Ernst Seiler, released three Social Democrats (Richard Bernaschek, Otto Huschka, Franz Schlagin) and two Nazis (Ignaz Faster, Karl Straßmayr) from the Linz regional court prison with the help of the prison officer Karl Dobler escape. All five were brought to Passau and then Munich by Nazi escape helpers. Bernaschek was welcomed with full honors by the National Socialists. After a reception by the Mayor of Passau and a visit to the Austrian Legion in Vilshofen, where Bernaschek was introduced to the SA leader for Austria Hermann Reschny , he traveled on to Munich. On April 5, 1934, the first meeting with Theo Habicht , the head of the NSDAP in Austria, took place. During his stay, Bernaschek received generous financial support from the national leadership of the NSDAP for Austria. In Munich, the two Nazis and the two Social Democrats who had fled with Bernaschek joined the Austrian Legion , while Bernaschek announced, "The National Socialists' program is closer to us". Bernaschek wrote a manuscript in Munich in which he dealt with the situation of the Austrian social democracy, in which he also explored the possibility of cooperation with the National Socialists. However, the hope that he would be supported by the National Socialists in publishing his work is not fulfilled. And with that he again distanced himself from the National Socialists.

Bernaschek was able to leave Germany unmolested on May 30, 1934 and traveled on to Zurich, where he found refuge with Friedrich Adler , the secretary of the Second International . Bernaschek then traveled by plane to Prague, where he was brought to the Zbraslav Schutzbundler camp by the Schutzbund official Recknagel . He also got in touch with the emigrated Otto Bauer and his foreign office of the Austrian Social Democrats (ALÖS) in Brno. At the beginning of August he was able to start a planned trip to Moscow with Richard Strasser and August Moser. Here he was also received in a very friendly manner and met with Béla Kun , Knorin and Manuilski . Although he was not legitimized by the Revolutionary Socialists (RS) , the successor organization of the SDAP, he developed far-reaching plans for cooperation between the Second International and the Third International . Neither the Communists nor the Social Democrats ultimately accepted the battle front proposed by Bernaschek for both parties. He expressed himself very negatively about the Soviet Union and the situation of the workers there ( "Here the worker has just as little to talk as he does with the Nazis. Dictatorship here and there. This is not for us" ). Perhaps the murder of Bernaschek's son-in-law Franz Leschanz, who - like many other Schutzbunds who fled to the Soviet Union - fell victim to waves of Stalinist purges, also played a role in this assessment.

After returning to Czechoslovakia, after a short stay in Prague in October 1934, he moved to Kaplitz, where he stayed under the code name Franz Hoffmann. In the spring of 1935 he had to leave the district due to a decision by the Kaplitz district administration and was then in Prague or again in the Zbrazlav emigrant camp. He earned his living from grants from the Second International and odd jobs. After the Nazis marched into Austria on March 12, 1938, Bernaschek tried to return to Austria. This turned out to be somewhat difficult, since he had been expatriated on December 6, 1935 because of his subversive political activities. Finally he received an interim passport from the Czech authorities, which enabled him to leave for France on January 20, 1939, in order to possibly emigrate to Sweden from there. In Paris he received the news from his brother Ludwig that he could return to Austria without fear of arrest, this had been assured by Gauleiter August Eigruber . On January 30, 1939, he returned to Linz and was naturalized again.

In Linz he was initially employed in his brother Ludwig's radio shop. Then he is said to have been a representative for a leather company, and ultimately he gets a job as an insurance agent for Allianz insurance. In June 1943 he applied for a position in the Municipal Machine Office, which he could also take up on July 1, 1943.

Monument on Bernaschekplatz in Linz, design by Leopold Grausam, jun. , erected in March 1988.

death

After the assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944 , Bernaschek was arrested and first transferred to the police prison in Linz, then to the Mauthausen concentration camp , then to the police headquarters in Vienna (October 1944), from there to the Gestapo prison in the former Hotel Metropol on Morzinplatz and at the beginning of March In 1945 brought back to Mauthausen. Bernaschek was mistreated and tortured in Mauthausen. Shortly before the end of the war, according to witness reports, Bernaschek was murdered by SS Oberscharführer Niedermeier on April 18, 1945 in the Mauthausen concentration camp by shooting in the neck. His family received a cynical message of condolences from the camp administration with the death certificate, which listed pneumonia as the cause of death.

Honors

A square in the Urfahr district of Linz has been named after him since 1945.

The Bernaschek island in the Inn also bears his name.

In Mauthausen there is a settlement area, the Bernaschek settlement named after him. This settlement includes u. a. the building of the former camp commandant Ziereis and some semi-detached houses, which were used by high-ranking camp personnel and others during the National Socialist era. a. were occupied by the camp doctor. His brother Ludwig Bernaschek was a member of the state governments Gleißner III to VIII .

literature

• Inez Kykal, Karl R. Stadler : Richard Bernaschek. A rebel odyssey. Europaverlag, Vienna 1976.
• Harry Slapnicka : Upper Austria - The political leadership 1918 to 1938. Oberösterreichischer Landesverlag, Linz 1976, pp. 42–45, ISBN 3-85214-163-X .

Web links

• Biography of Richard Bernaschek on the server of the federal state of Upper Austria .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Inez Kykal & Karl R. Stadler (1976). Richard Bernaschek. A rebel odyssey. Vienna: European publishing house.
2. ^ Richard Bernaschek (1934): The tragedy of the Austrian social democracy. In Austria, European fire source , p. 269.
3. ^ Letter from Richard Bernaschek of February 5, 1934 to the party leadership in Vienna, quoted from Kykal & Stadler, 1976, p. 82 f.
4. ^ Gottfried-Karl Kindermann (2003): Austria against Hitler. Europe's first defensive front 1933–1938. Munich: Langen-Müller, p. 159.
5. ↑ Inez Kykal & Karl R. Stadler (1976): Richard Bernaschek. A rebel odyssey. Vienna: Europaverlag, p. 93.
6. ↑ Hans von Hammerstein (1981): In the beginning was the murder: Experiences as district captain of Braunau am Inn and as security director of Upper Austria in the years 1933 and 1934. Munich: Oldenbourg (studies and sources on Austrian contemporary history; vol. 3, p. 100ff).
7. ^ Harry Slapnicka (1975): Upper Austria - Between Civil War and Anschluss (1927–1938). Linz: Oberösterreichischer Landesverlag, p. 132.
8. ↑ Harry Slapnicka (1976): Upper Austria - The political leadership 1918 to 1938. Linz: Upper Austrian state publisher.
9. ↑ Inez Kykal & Karl R. Stadler (1976): Richard Bernaschek. A rebel odyssey. Vienna: Europaverlag, p. 191.
10. ↑ http://www.linz.at/strassennamen/Default.asp?action=strassendetail&ID=3331