Willi Frank (resistance fighter)

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Willi Frank (born February 12, 1909 in Steyr ; † February 19, 1945 ) was an Austrian communist and resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

As a locksmith's apprentice , Frank joined the Communist Youth Association (KJV) in 1925 . After his apprenticeship he was unemployed, then KJV chairman in Margareten , later in Floridsdorf . In 1931 Frank became a member of the Central Committee of the KJV. On the VI. World Congress of the Communist Youth International (KJI) in Moscow in 1935 , he was elected as a candidate for the Executive Committee of the KJI.

During the Austro-Fascism and after the Anschluss , Frank worked illegally in Austria. At the end of 1939 he - along with Erwin Puschmann , Franz Honner and Julius Kornweitz - took part in the meeting of the leading functionaries of the KPÖ's foreign apparatus in Split , which tried to reestablish a permanent connection between foreign countries and the groups in Austria. Frank fled to the Soviet Union in Moscow in 1941, where he was co-opted into the Central Committee of the KPÖ .

After the attack on the Soviet Union , Frank fought on the side of the " Red Army ". Before leaving for Slovenia, he worked among Austrian prisoners of war in Krasnogorsk . On December 10, 1944, Frank was brought in a Soviet plane via Kiev and Belgrade to the Slovenian partisan area in Črnomelj , where the leading KPÖ functionaries Franz Honner and Friedl Fürnberg had started to set up an Austrian battalion. Immediately afterwards, preparations began in Tribuče for an inland operation to activate the resistance movement there. On February 17, 1945, the group led by Frank finally left for the north. On the morning of February 19, 1945 Frank was fatally wounded in a surprise attack by White Guards operating in the partisan area in the Slovenian village of Smuka.

Honors

  • Willi Frank and Willi Högl, a radio operator who had died with him, were buried at the cemetery in Poljane . In 1959 a memorial stone was unveiled here. Since 1962 there has also been a memorial stone in Smuka that commemorates the death of the two Austrian anti-fascists.
  • In Steyr there is a street and in Vienna - Margareten there is a park named after Willi Frank since 1989.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heimo Halbrainer: Herbert Eichholzer and the resistance against National Socialism ( Memento from January 13, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Willi-Frank-Park on wien.gv.at.
personal data
SURNAME Frank, Willi
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH February 12, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Steyr
DATE OF DEATH February 19, 1945
Place of death Slovenia