Willi Gaisch

Willi Gaisch (born July 3, 1922 , † December 11, 2009 in Graz ) was an Austrian politician .

Life

Willi Gaisch's father met Willi's mother, a Russian-Jewish worker, while he was a prisoner of war in Russia , into which he was a volunteer soldier during the First World War .

Willi Gaisch grew up in a working class family and learned the trade of carpenter . In 1936 he joined the Communist Youth Association (KJV) and in 1938 the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ). Although he persecuted because of his Jewish faith and twice by the Gestapo was arrested (Gestapo), he resigned after the connection of Austria to the German Reich one of his homeland's sovereignty. Not only did he support the communist resistance movement, but he also kept in touch with Richard Zach , a teacher who was executed in 1943.

After the war, Gaisch worked as an editor for the daily Truth and began to go his way within his party, the KPÖ. He was the district secretary of Graz , acted as the Styrian state secretary, and was elected state party chairman of the KPÖ in 1979. In 1987 he moved into the Politburo . In both 1981 and 1986 Gaisch was the top candidate for the Communists in the state elections in Styria, but was not able to achieve any major success except for 1.34 percentage points of votes in 1981. Both times the KPÖ did not succeed in entering the state parliament.

In November 1991, he resigned from his position as regional chairman of the KPÖ, but remained a member of the KPÖ's state secretariat as financial officer. After leaving these functions, he was elected honorary chairman of the Styrian KPÖ at the 2007 state party congress. Willi Gaisch was still active in the KPÖ until the end and was considered an advocate of Marxism .

He died as a result of a stroke that he suffered during the student protests in Austria in 2009/2010 at the University of Graz .

Since December 10, 2010, the largest lecture hall, the Auditorium Maximum (06.01), of the University of Graz has officially been named "Willi-Gaisch-Hörsaal".

Web links

• Willi Gaisch 1922–2009
• University of Graz: Lecture hall named after Willi Gaisch