Dr. Ernst Joseph Görlich

Ernst Joseph Görlich is born as the son of a Moravian owner of a accounting office. After the completion of the Landstraßer Gymnasium in 1924 – in his maturation year, the later Vice Chancellor Bruno Pittermann also sat – he studies history, geography and German studies at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Vienna (Dr. phil. 1929) and in these subjects also completes the teaching examination for Higher Schools.

In 1932 Ernst Joseph Görlich receives an employment at the teacher's institute of the daughters of the Divine Redeemer in Steinberg, now Steinberg-Dörfl (ungary Répcekohalom-Dérföld, croatian Štamperak-Drfelj), in the district of Oberpullendorf. He goes there with his family and quickly integrates himself into the still young state of Burgenland. As a believing Catholic, Ernst Joseph Görlich is a decisive opponent of National Socialism and the connection he is fighting against until the end. Legendary is his speech right before the connection where he said: “We do not fight for Moscow, we do not fight for Berlin. We fight for a free and independent Austria!”

After that, Ernst Joseph Görlich is released and finds employment as a teacher in the Reichsprotektorat Böhmen-Mähren. In 1943 he was moved to the German Wehrmacht and used there, after a serious illness, as an interpreter in Italy.

After the war, Ernst Joseph Görlich finds an employment at the Technological Trade Museum in Vienna (TGM, Higher School Vocational Education), with his family moving to Vienna.

The text of the Burgenland hymn comes from its spring.