Walter Caldonazzi

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Walter Caldonazzi (born June 4, 1916 in Mals / South Tyrol ; † January 9, 1945 in Vienna ) was an Austrian resistance fighter against National Socialism . He was sentenced to death by the People's Court and beheaded in the Vienna Regional Court .

The young Caldonazzi

Walter was born as the son of Rudolf and Wilhelmine Caldonazzi in Mals in Vinschgau . After the First World War , the family moved to Kramsach in North Tyrol , where Walter completed compulsory school and was an altar boy in the Mariathal parish church . He attended high school in Kufstein . There he joined the Cimbria Kufstein Middle School Association in the MKV in 1931 .

In 1933 he broke his hip and leg while boarding a train. This serious accident made him permanently unable to walk, which is why he often carried a walking stick with him.

In 1934 Caldonazzi graduated from high school and went to Vienna to study forestry at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences . Before 1938, Caldonazzi was also a member of the Heimwehr and the Fatherland Front . In Vienna he joined the student association K.Ö.HV Amelungia Wien in the ÖCV in 1937 . After Austria's annexation on March 12, 1938, all Catholic student associations were banned and dissolved . Nevertheless, in June 1938, Caldonazzi became a full member of the fraternity in a fraternity carried out secretly in the apartment of a federal brother . Walter Caldonazzi was a staunch Christian and patriot from childhood. He was a staunch opponent of the occupation of Austria by Hitler's Germany and the associated suppression of religious groups.

resistance

After completing his studies with the title of qualified engineer, Caldonazzi found a job with the United Forestry Chancellery in Vienna in 1941 . Due to his walking disability, he was classified as unfit for military service.

During visits to Tyrol, he is said to have been subversive in the vicinity of Kramsach with the help of his father and founded a monarchist-separatist resistance group together with the Tyrolean police officer Andreas Hofer (a great-grandson of the Tyrolean freedom fighter of the same name ). He is said to have been particularly well networked among the workers and employees of the armaments factory Raspewerke . These emerged from the Achenrain brass works, which was sold to the Berlin-based chemical company Gebrüder Raspe in 1938 , and manufactured, among other things, bulletproof fuel tanks for aircraft. Walter's father Rudolf Caldonazzi was employed as a metalworker in the brass works before the sale, but was not taken on by the Raspewerke because he was considered to be “politically unreliable”. Instead he found a job as an accountant at the Heinkel works in Jenbach. This was also an important armaments company that produced, for example, drive components for the Messerschmitt Me 163 and V-2 rockets . But there, too, at the instigation of Kramsach National Socialists, he was soon fired. In this environment, Walter and Rudolf Caldonazzi are said to have built a resistance movement with 200 to 400 members who also had contact with resistance groups in the Wildschönau and Brixlegg. Activities included whisper propaganda, identifying like-minded people and sabotage of National Socialist gatherings and collections. From 1940 on, information about the murder of the Jews was received and distributed, and contacts with Italian resistance groups were established through Italian construction workers.

In Vienna, Walter Caldonazzi joined the Maier-Messner group around the resistance fighters Kaplan Heinrich Maier and the general director of Semperit AG Franz Josef Messner by 1943 at the latest . This politically inhomogeneous group was unanimous in its strict rejection of the Nazi regime and sought to regain Austria's independence as quickly as possible. The primary means for this purpose was the forwarding of vital information to the Allies through contacts with American and British secret services in Switzerland and Turkey. It was hoped that this would lead to targeted air strikes on companies important to the war effort - and thus an early end to the war - and that residential areas would be spared from air strikes. One can assume that Caldonazzi's knowledge of Tyrolean armaments factories was passed on in this way. In the autumn of 1943 Caldonazzi carried out surveying work in a steelworks and made plan sketches of the plant for Maier, which he wanted to forward to the Allies.

In autumn 1943, Caldonazzi, Hofer and the physician Josef Wyhnal discussed how they could help acquaintances who were about to undergo a military examination and feared being sent to the front. It was decided to distribute bacterial cultures prepared by Wyhnal, with which weeks of fever and thus an unsuitability for the front could be caused.

On February 25, 1944, Caldonazzi was arrested by the Gestapo .

Captivity and death

Walter Caldonazzi was imprisoned with three other prisoners in the Rossauer Lände prison. During the interrogations at the Gestapo headquarters on Morzinplatz, he was very likely also tortured. In a cash register dated May 27, 1944 he wrote:

“I have been in custody by the Gestapo since February [...] for high treason. I have a very big request. Food is totally inedible here. Since I can now receive food parcels, I ask you, if you are able to send me bread, it can also be hard [...] We are terribly hungry here [...] "

- Walter Caldonazzi

After a short trial on October 27th and 28th, Walter Caldonazzi was found guilty on October 28th by the People's Court, 5th Senate, chaired by Senate President Albrecht "of preparing for high treason, favoring the enemy, espionage and degrading military strength", Sentenced to death and loss of honorary rights for life.

Several letters from Caldonazzi's death row have come down to us, testifying to his faith and conviction that he acted for a just cause. An example of an excerpt from his letter of January 1, 1945 to his father Rudolf, his sister Herta and his fiancée Hedi:

"My days and hours are already numbered, know that I like to give my life for my home country, although the thought of my Hedi and Hertha cost me many bitter tears. You know, I was always an opponent of war, always an enemy of mindless Prussian militarism. Don't reproach me, please, this horrible death was mapped out for me, I carry my lot with full faithfulness as a faithful Christian. I would have a pleasure, that is, please: Bring me a torture in the most beautiful place in the world, as it seemed to me, on the Almkranz on the Praa-Alm, with a request for prayer and the words, O Land Tirol, my only happiness, you consecrated my last look! ' [...] Father, it is God's decision that I should give my life for a good cause better than I would have fallen as a soldier against my convictions for Hitler. "

- Walter Caldonazzi

In the prison of the regional court, where he was waiting for the execution of the sentence, Caldonazzi also had a tragic encounter with his former classmate and federal brother of the Cimbria Kufstein Ernst Ortner , who was also sentenced to death as a resistance fighter - albeit for the AFÖ group .

The prison chaplain wrote in his report on the execution of Walter Caldonazzi:

“Caldonazzi was a deeply religious, strictly Catholic. Man, a steadfast Austrian. He received the holy sacraments repeatedly, and most recently shortly before his execution. He asked me to send my last regards to lb. Parents and sister and to his bride Hedi Kapeller, the last thoughts were with them. When he was taken from cell E44 (single wing, ground floor) to the cell for poor sinners, he shouted: 'Long live Christ, the King!' he remained calm and collected in the poor sinner's cell. He asked me to inform his bride and sister of his wish and his request that they should continue to remain good Catholic, decent girls as Christian as before and as he himself has always been and has died as such. When he was led to the execution at 6 p.m., he cried / prayed: 'O God, do not count this as sin for them!' He died on Tuesday, January 9th, 1945 at 6:04 p.m. "

- Eduard Koeck

The burial took place the next day in a shaft grave in Vienna's central cemetery. In 1947 the body was exhumed at the instigation of the Amelungia and buried in the monastery cemetery in Breitenfurt. Another exhumation took place in 1975, and Walter Caldonazzi found his final resting place in the family grave of his sister Herta at the Pradler Friedhof in Innsbruck .

Memorials

Memorial plaque on Walter-Caldonazzi-Platz in Vienna
  • As early as 1945, friends set up a small wooden cross on the Praa-Alm in Wildschönau for Walter Caldonazzi.
  • In 1988 the Tyrolean Forest Association inaugurated a memorial cross on the Praa-Alm to commemorate those Tyrolean foresters who perished because of their resistance to the Nazi regime: In addition to Walter Caldonazzi, these are: Karl Mayr from Baumkirchen, Viktor Czerny from Ried im Oberinntal and Ferdinand Eberharter from Kaltenbach.
  • In 1989 a memorial plaque was unveiled for Walter Caldonazzi and Ernst Ortner on the lower town square in Kufstein, which reads: “The Austrian Catholic student association Cimbria Kufstein commemorates its Nazi victims, Dipl.-Ing. Walter Caldonazzi and Ernst Ortner. "
  • In September 1993, his federal brothers from the Amelungia erected a memorial plaque on the cross on the Praa Alm, according to Caldonazzi's request from the letter of January 1, 1945.
  • In Kufstein, on May 11, 2002, a memorial stone was unveiled at the foot of the fortress on the occasion of the 45th CVV of the ÖCV.
  • In 2006 a square in Vienna- Hietzing was named after Walter Caldonazzi.
  • In 2007 a memorial plaque was erected in Kramsach by a local art association.
  • In 2008 a memorial stone with a bronze plaque was put up by the Amelungia on Walter-Caldonazzi-Platz in Vienna.
  • In 2011, as part of the redesign of the Landhausplatz in Innsbruck, the names of 107 people who died in the resistance against the Nazi regime, including Walter Caldonazzi, were affixed to the liberation monument.
  • In 2017, the Tyrolean Forest Association, Amelungia and Cimbria erected a new memorial on the Praa-Alm.

literature

  • Herbert Fritz: wearing colors - showing your colors, 1938–1945. Catholic Corporates in Resistance and Persecution . Austrian Association for Student History , Vienna 1988, ( Acta studentica 71 B, ZDB -ID 1350204-9 ), pp. 132-136.
  • People's Court : Judgments 5 H 96/44 - 5 H 100/44 and reasons for the judgment . Vienna October 28, 1944, p. 1–30 ( online on the DÖW website [PDF; 7.5 MB ] Numbering error: Pages 11 and 12 are duplicated).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d DÖW (Ed.): Resistance and persecution in Tyrol 1934–1945, Volume 2 . Österreichischer Bundesverlag, Vienna 1984, ISBN 978-3-215-05369-6 , pp. 444-448 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Peter Diem : Caldonazzi, Walter. In: Austria Forum . March 9, 2017, Retrieved August 19, 2017 (Church name listed here as Mari en thal [sic]).
  3. ↑ a b c Bbr. Roman Posch: Walter Caldonazzi. In: Website of the K.Ö.HV Amelungia. Retrieved August 19, 2017 .
  4. ^ A b Paulus Ebner : The University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna: From the foundation to the future 1872–1997 . Ed .: Manfried Welan. Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 1997, ISBN 978-3-205-98610-2 , p. 134 f . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  5. ↑ a b See judgment of the People's Court, p. 4
  6. ^ A b Gisela Hormayr: Caldonazzi, Walter. (1916–1945), resistance fighter and forest engineer. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon Online Edition. Austrian Academy of Sciences , November 25, 2016, accessed on August 19, 2017 .
  7. ↑ Horst Schreiber, Christopher Grüner (Hrsg.): Those who died for the freedom of Austria: The liberation monument in Innsbruck. Processes of remembering . Universitätsverlag Wagner, Innsbruck 2016, ISBN 978-3-7030-0955-6 , p. 72 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  8. ↑ Gisela Hormayr: Reconstruction and prosperity in Tyrol in the post-war period . In: Wilfried Beimrohr (ed.): Zeitgeschichtliche Streiflichter: Tyrol in the First Republic, under National Socialism and in the post-war period; a teaching aid for teachers . Universitätsverlag Wagner, Innsbruck 2010, ISBN 978-3-7030-0468-1 , p. 414 ( available online on the website suchen.at (PDF; 4.6 MB)).
  9. ↑ a b Gisela Hormayr: The resistance against the Nazi regime . In: Wilfried Beimrohr (ed.): Zeitgeschichtliche Streiflichter: Tyrol in the First Republic, under National Socialism and in the post-war period; a teaching aid for teachers . Universitätsverlag Wagner, Innsbruck 2010, ISBN 978-3-7030-0468-1 , p. 226 ff . ( available online on the website suchen.at (PDF; 1.4 MB)).
  10. ^ Markus Schmitzberger: Heinkel-Werke - Jenbach. In: secret projects at. Retrieved August 20, 2017 .
  11. ↑ a b Andrea Hurton, Hans Schafranek: Im Netz der Verräter. In: derStandard.at . June 4, 2010. Retrieved August 20, 2017 .
  12. ↑ See judgment of the People's Court, p. 12
  13. ↑ See judgment of the People's Court, p. 8
  14. ↑ Gisela Hormayr: "If I could at least say goodbye to you": Last letters and notes from Tyrolean Nazi victims from prison . StudienVerlag , 2017, ISBN 978-3-7065-5639-2 , pp. 175 ff . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  15. ↑ See judgment of the People's Court, p. 2 and p. 18 (listed as p. 16 due to errors in the numbering)
  16. ↑ a b 2015 commemorative year. Cimbria Kufstein commemorates its members murdered by the National Socialists in 1945. In: cimbria-kufstein.at. K.Ö.St.V Cimbria Kufstein, 2017, accessed on August 20, 2017 .
  17. ↑ a b Barbara Fluckinger: Memorial dedicated to four brave Tyrolean resistance fighters. In: mein district.at. Bezirksblätter Tirol GmbH, August 28, 2017, accessed on August 31, 2017 .
  18. ^ Winfried Hofinger: 150 years of the Tyrolean Forest Association. Two world wars with high blood toll. 2004, accessed August 20, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Caldonazzi, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH June 4, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Mals , South Tyrol
DATE OF DEATH January 9, 1945
Place of death Vienna