Walter Adam (journalist)

Walter Adam (born January 6, 1886 in Klagenfurt , † February 26, 1947 in Innsbruck ) was the head of the Federal Press Service in Austria and general secretary of the Fatherland Front (VF).

Life

Since his father served in the Austrian army , Adam got to know the cities of Linz , Innsbruck and Lemberg in his childhood when changing garrisons . When he was fourteen he had to attend a military college for officer candidates . As an ensign he joined the Infantry Regiment 59, which was stationed in Salzburg .

He completed the war school in Vienna from 1909 to 1912, after which he was transferred to the General Staff. During World War I he distinguished himself in Serbia and in the 14th Mountain Brigade, so that he was promoted to captain early. Later he was on the staff of Field Marshal Conrad von Hötzendorf . He was appointed chief of staff of the Austro-Hungarian troops for a mission in Turkey .

After the end of the war he remained in the army and worked with the new Federal Minister for Army Affairs, Carl Vaugoin , in his tasks to restructure the army . In 1924 he left military service. In the same year he became a member of the editorial team of the Reichspost published by the Christian Social Party . Because of his special journalistic skills, he soon rose to the position of deputy editor-in-chief Friedrich Funder .

His main topics in the newspaper were the League of Nations , the questions of disarmament and the problems of the revision of the peace treaties. In these positions he also represented views represented in the German Reich , but turned against an annexation or alignment of Austria with the German Reich and also rejected anti-Semitism.

When Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss transferred the office of Federal Commissioner in the Homeland Service to him in 1934 , he left the newspaper editorial office.

In his lectures and speeches, some of which could also be heard on the radio, Adam underlined the special cultural characteristics of Austria. These peculiarities would justify the political line that Austria must continue to remain politically independent and autonomous. To do this, however, it is necessary for the supporters of the various political currents to come together in a " Fatherland Front " founded by Dollfuß, whose new General Secretary Adam was appointed by Kurt von Schuschnigg in October 1934 . With these two positions he was one of the leading political personalities in Austria, and in 1937 he was awarded the Commander's Cross First Class of the Austrian Order of Merit by the Federal President for his constant advocacy for an independent Austria .

When Vice Chancellor Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg resigned from the government, Adam also resigned as General Secretary of the VF in May 1936, but continued to head the propaganda as Federal Commissioner for the Homeland Service. After the resignation of Minister Eduard Ludwig , Adam took over the management of the Federal Press Service in December 1936, so that the entire apparatus of the Austrian press and propaganda was concentrated in his person.

On March 10, 1937, the Frankfurter Zeitung published the article "Pacification in stages - the recent development of domestic politics in Austria", which established an alleged new line of politics in Austria, because it presented the possibility that a "Deutsch-Sozial Volksbundes" a new basis for the illegal opposition of the National Socialists should be made possible. Adam rejected these alleged intentions because the Frankfurter Zeitung wrote the article based on false information or as a political maneuver.

When in February 1938 Schuschnigg negotiated with Hitler about the relationship of the German Reich and the National Socialists to Austria in Berchtesgaden , he was presented with a list of demands that the German ambassador Wilhelm Keppler had formulated, which went down in history as the “dictate of Berchtesgaden” has been received. In point 7 of the demands, the replacement of Adam was requested. In the protocol published later, however, Adam was no longer mentioned.

On February 16, 1938, Adam published a comment on the Berchtesgaden communique in which he once again expressed the hope that the demands made would be compatible with the political structure in Austria. On the evening of March 11, 1938, the putschist Hans Blaschke occupied the headquarters of the "Fatherland Front" with a group of National Socialists and removed the symbols of the VF. Thus, in the course of the occupation of Austria, this association was forcibly removed.

A few days later Adam was arrested along with 150 other people on the basis of a list from Department II D of the Vienna State Police Headquarters of the Gestapo (with Reichhold as a facsimile ). On April 1, 1938, he was deported to Germany with the “ Prominententransport ” to the Dachau concentration camp , where he remained until the summer of 1943. In autumn 1943 Adam was expelled to the Rhineland. Here he was contacted by emissaries of the German resistance around Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg .

Still weakened by his long imprisonment in the concentration camp, Adam died of tuberculosis in February 1947 .

Fonts

• Patriotic Front-State Professional Associations , in: Volkswohl, Volume 26, Issue 3, 1934/35
• Our state program , Vienna 1935
• Night over Germany. Memories of Dachau. A contribution to the cultural history of the Third Reich. From the literary estate of Walter Adam , Vienna 1947

credentials

• Adam Walter. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 1, Publishing House of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1957, p. 4.
• Friedrich Funder, When Austria stood up to the storm , Vienna 1957
• Dieter Wagner, Gerhard Toinkowitz, “one people, one empire, one leader!”: The Anschluss of Austria 1938 , 1968
• Oskar Regele , Field Marshal Conrad: Order and fulfillment 1906-1918 , 1955
• Karl Bömer , Handbook of the World Press , Leipzig 1937
• Ludwig Reichhold, Battle for Austria - The Fatherland Front and its resistance to the Anschluss 1933-1938 , Vienna 1984

Web links

• Entry on Walter Adam (journalist) in the Austria Forum  (in the AEIOU Austria Lexicon )