Walter Kämpf

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Image of the tombstone in the Vienna Central Cemetery, group 40

Walter Kämpf (born on September 12, 1920 in Vienna ; died on November 2, 1943 there ) was an Austrian student , soldier and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime . He was sentenced to death by the Nazi military justice system and beheaded in the Vienna Regional Court at the age of 23 .

Life

Kämpf was a student at the Federal Training and Research Institute for the Chemical Industry in Vienna, from which he was excluded in 1936 because of his work in the Communist Youth Association (KJVÖ). Later Kämpf was able to resume classes, in 1938/39 he graduated from the 4th year with excellent grades.

After the annexation of Austria in 1938 he belonged - together with Elfriede Hartmann , Friedrich Mastny , Franz Reingruber and others. a. - the KJVÖ group “ The Soldiers' Council ” and was significantly involved in the production of illegal newspapers, leaflets and leaflets. Building on Kämpf's chemical knowledge, the group also dealt with the production of so-called “fire platelets”, which were intended for sabotage attacks. Kämpf was drafted into the German Armed Forces and when he was arrested - after betrayal by Gestapo informers - he was an air force corporal . He was tortured in Gestapo custody.

Quote

“The informers are 'Herta - Olga - Gretl - Sonja', lives in the 14th district in Selzergasse No.? for glasses or glasses. This is her friend - informer 'Ossi'. Furthermore brothers Kutni, Ziegelofengasse 25, their sister Hermine and 'Kahane' - Herta's brother? These revealed, among other things, Fredi's brother. Everything about me and my friends (also the 9th district) is therefore completely known. (...) Warns party comrades about informers whom I named. Everyone sits in the party leadership (young people were in) and blows up every new Central Committee, some of them old functionaries who buy their lives from the Gestapo. (...) Gestapo makes everyone spit with medieval tortures. (...) Government councilor Höfler hit me a lot and let me hang on my hands. In Fritzl (only has one sick kidney) he had 8 liters of water poured into it, then threatened with another 5 liters, led (him) to the Liesl and showed him through the peep to his mother, who is only released after his confession. Then he spat the puller. (...) and really had to eat everything except for Pospischil, about whom nobody but me knew. "

- Walter Kämpf : Text excerpt from a cash register, edited by the Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance

Commemoration

His name can be found on the plaque in the former execution room of the Vienna Regional Court .

swell

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Kutni [correct: Koutny], Speiben [= confession], Liesl [= police prison Elisabethpromenade, later Roßauer Lände].
  2. ^ Postwar Justice , accessed February 10, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Fight, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian unskilled worker and resistance fighter against National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH September 12, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH November 2, 1943
Place of death Vienna