Udo Proksch

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Udo Rudolf Proksch ( pseudonym Serge Kirchhofer ; born May 29, 1934 in Rostock ; † June 27, 2001 in Graz ) was an Austrian entrepreneur , networker , designer and mass murderer . He was considered the mastermind behind the case Lucona convicted in 1992 for six counts of murder and was until his death in the penitentiary Graz-Karlau detained.

Life

Udo Proksch's parents, Rudolf and Anna Elisabeth Proksch, were staunch National Socialists - even after the Second World War . Udo Proksch attended the NAPOLA school near Bischofshofen until 1945 . The Rudolf-Proksch-Hütte , a mountain hut, is named after one of his grandfathers .

Proksch was considered the enfant terrible of Austrian society. He saw himself as apolitical, yet he declared that he hated the bourgeoisie , even though he was related and married across the European upper class. He was married from 1962 to 1967 to the Austrian castle actress Erika Pluhar . From this marriage a daughter, Anna Proksch (1962-1999), emerged, who died of the consequences of an asthma attack. From 1967 to 1968 he was married to Richard Wagner's great-granddaughter Daphne Wagner and from 1969 to Ariane Glatz. In August 1969, Glatz gave birth to a son who was probably not conceived by Proksch, whom Proksch named Stefan Drusius Ingomar , which, according to Proksch, became Dr. Ing. Should be shortened. The son died in a car accident at the age of six. With Cäcilie Reifferschmidt-Krautheim, Proksch fathered a daughter and a son, and a son born in 1981 comes from another relationship.

Proksch studied a few semesters at the Academy of Applied Arts in the master class for commercial and industrial designs by Oswald Haerdtl from 1954 to 1958 . From 1957 he designed glasses for the brands Serge Kirchhofer, Viennaline, Carrera and Porsche Design as designer and art director for the company Wilhelm Anger OHG (in Traun / Upper Austria or Lützowgasse 12-14, Vienna 14 , Atelier Köllnerhofgasse in Vienna) . As a designer he called himself Serge Kirchhofer.

In the late 1960s , Proksch was joint editor of the journal Analyze with two members of the Roman Catholic Opus Dei . From 1972 he appeared as Serge Kirchhofer as sole authorized signatory at the kuk Hofzuckerbäckerei Demel .

One of his ideas was the “Association of the Vertically Buried”, founded in 1969/1970, which wanted to weld the dead in plastic tubes and place them vertically in the ground with the aim of stimulating the plastic industry and solving the lack of space in cemeteries. Members included Helmut Zilk , Proksch's first wife Pluhar, Hans Dichand and Helmut Qualtinger .

Another idea envisaged a restricted area in which men should be able to “play” war with real weapons and live ammunition - quasi a controlled “living out” of the ineradicable killing instinct claimed by Udo Proksch. Thanks to his good connections to Defense Minister Karl Lütgendorf, he is said to have even been able to fly over Vienna in a fighter plane. At the instigation of the same minister, the CUM (civil and military) association founded by Proksch repeatedly received decommissioned aircraft and trucks from the armed forces as "loans". Proksch repeatedly carried out blasting exercises under the supervision of Major Hans Edelmaier at the Hochfilzen military training area in Tyrol; here he came into possession of explosives from stocks of the Austrian army .

From 1974 Proksch was the owner of the Hofzuckerbäckerei Demel and founder of Club 45 , a group of politicians (mainly from the SPÖ ).

The Lucona case

In 1976 he chartered the freighter Lucona to ship an alleged uranium ore mill insured for 212 million shillings (15.4 million euros ). The Lucona sank on January 23, 1977 in the Indian Ocean after an explosion. Six people died and six other crew members barely survived. The federal state insurance did not pay out the sum insured because they suspected that the Lucona had only loaded junk. Because of Proksch's excellent connections in the highest circles of politics, the investigative authorities did nothing for a long time to get to the bottom of the allegations. Proksch and Hans Peter Daimler were only arrested on February 15, 1985 on suspicion of fraud, but released on February 28.

Through the uncovering work of journalists Gerald Freihofner and Hans Pretterebner , whose book Der Fall Lucona was published in December 1987, and Proksch's subsequent escape in early 1988, the process of coming to terms with the Lucona scandal, which in Austria is considered the "scandal of the century", began. Among other things, it led to the resignation of the President of the National Council Leopold Gratz (SPÖ) and Interior Minister Karl Blecha (SPÖ), because they had brought about Proksch's release from custody. After fleeing to Asia (including face surgery in Manila ) and halfway across Europe, Proksch was arrested on October 2, 1989 (under the name of Alfred Semrad) at Vienna International Airport .

Grave of Udo Proksch at the Heiligenstadt cemetery

A deep-sea diving team with a robot finally discovered the wreck on the ocean floor, the images of the explosion confirmed the allegations of the prosecution. During these investigations it was also found that the alleged uranium ore processing plant was a large plastic extruder plant for sheathing district heating pipes. This first and unique system was designed and built by the company Cincinnati Milacron , Vienna-Penzing , in order to place district heating on the Austrian market. However, it was never put into operation. Udo Proksch knew about the system because he had worked for the manufacturing company at the time, and acquired it eight years after it was created at scrap value.

After one of the longest trials of the Second Republic , Proksch was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1992 for sixfold murder and sixfold attempted murder. He died in custody as a result of a heart transplant . He was buried in the Heiligenstädter Friedhof (part A, group TO, number 26B) in Vienna.

Awards

  • 1956: Italian Fashion Prize in Venice, designs for printed fabrics
  • 1960: Silver medal Triennale Italy for industrial design, for Viennaline models
  • 1965: State Prize by the Austrian Institute for Packaging and by the Austrian Ministry of Commerce
  • 1964: EURO = STAR: European packaging competition
  • 1965: EURO = STAR

See also

literature

Other media

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Artaman Leader . He worked as a staff operations leader and reporter for the special operations staff in the east in the operations staff Reichsleiter Rosenberg , most recently in 1945 in Frauenberg (Styria) . (cf. Patricia Kennedy Grimsted: Roads to Ratibor. Library an Archival Plunder by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg , in: Holocaust and Genocide Studies 19/3 (2005), note 145). See also his appeal: Artamanen. The beginning of a movement for young people to return to the countryside, in the magazine Wille und Macht, 1939, p. 22. Rudolf, geb. June 16, 1908 in Baden near Vienna , see Federal Archives (Germany) , seal NS 5-VI / 429, German Labor Front : Central Office, Ergonomic Institute, HJ , February 1934 - May 1939. Contains u. a. Rudolf Proksch's writing: "Youth in the country!" The land service of the Hitler Youth. (1937)
  2. ↑ Ingrid Thurnher : In the footsteps of Udo Proksch: The confectioner who seduced an entire republic. Exowin: 2011,
  3. ↑ Thomas M. Hofer: God's right church. Catholic fundamentalists on the rise. Ueberreuter, Vienna 1998, page 97. ISBN 3800036754
  4. ↑ Andreas Maurer: Moment am Sonntag: Of compostable urns and online graves . Ö1 Radio, ORF, April 8, 2018, 6.15 p.m., 45 min.
  5. ↑ Euro-Focus.de: Murderer and Designer: Udo Proksch † , queried on October 1, 2009
  6. ↑ Ö1 Highlights: Lucona and other scandals  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Ö1 website, accessed on September 16, 2009.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / oe1.orf.at  
  7. ^ Film Fonds Wien , accessed on March 10, 2010.
personal data
SURNAME Proksch, Udo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Proksch, Udo Rudolf (full name); Kirchhofer, Serge (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian businessman and criminal
DATE OF BIRTH May 29, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Rostock , Germany
DATE OF DEATH June 27, 2001
Place of death Graz , Austria