Adrian (Alois) Höck OPraem

Alois Höck attended the Franciscan grammar school in Hall/Tyrol and joined the secondary school fraternity Sternkorona Hall in 1921. After graduating from high school, he decided to become a priest and was accepted as a canon at the Premonstratensian monastery in Wilten in 1924, where he took the religious name Adrian. After studying theology, he was ordained a priest in Brixen on September 29, 1929 and took on pastoral duties in Wilten as a co-operator (chaplain) until 1933. He was responsible for the construction of the St. Bartlmä youth home and accompanied the young people of the German Scout Association of St. George (DPSG) as a curate.

After the occupation of Austria by the Third Reich, he was taken into "protective custody" as a parish priest in Hötting in 1938 because he had scheduled a mass of supplication for Dr. Kurt von Schuschnigg. In 1939, he left his home country for political reasons and went to Brazil as a missionary, where he worked beneficially in Bon Retiro until the end of the war. Prior to this, after the dissolution of the resistance group F.Ö. [= Freedom Austria], he helped to initiate a new legitimist Catholic underground organization "Vergissmeinnicht", modelled on the "Kampffront" group in Vienna. The members identified each other with a badge made of wool and fabric. In July 1939, this group, consisting of 140 men and women, was uncovered with the help of a confidant despite all precautionary measures, the first arrests were made and the 15 main defendants were only sentenced by the VGH on August 25, 1944.