Theobald (Josef Karl) Weber CanReg

Josef Karl Weber was born in Heuberg near Pyhra near St. Pölten in Lower Austria, the son of inn owner Josef Weber and Theresia, née Woisetschläger. Nothing is known about his childhood and youth.

On August 23, 1931, he entered the Augustinian Canons' Monastery in Herzogenburg and took the religious name Theobald. In 1935, he vows his perpetual profession and is ordained a priest in 1936. In 1937, Theobald Weber became a cooperator [today: chaplain] in Sitzenberg-Reidling.

As chaplain in Sitzenberg-Reidling, he witnessed the downfall of free and independent Austria when the German Wehrmacht invaded on March 12, 1938. In 1939, he became a parish priest and finally parish priest of this parish in 1941.

The opponent of National Socialism became involved in the resistance group Austrian Freedom Front/Group Moosbierbaum from 1944. He takes part in secret meetings, makes his typewriter available for the production of writings and acts as a liaison to the resistance movement in the aircraft factory in Traismauer around Karl Tittinger.

The resistance group is exposed due to the betrayal of the Gestapo informer Walter Ehart and over 200 people, consisting of foreign forced laborers, residents of the surrounding villages and communities, political prisoners (Christian Socialists, Social Democrats and Communists) are arrested.

Theobald Weber was arrested on January 16, 1945 and deported to the Mauthausen concentration camp on March 1, 1945. A stomach ailment, which he was already suffering from before his arrest, worsened during his imprisonment. He was finally liberated by US troops in the Mauthausen concentration camp on May 5, 1945, shortly before the surrender of the Third Reich.

After the re-establishment of Austria in 1945, Theobald Weber returned to his parish of Sitzenberg-Reidling. He joins the ÖVP-Kameradschaft der politisch Verfolgten und Bekenner für Österreich. In 1955 he became a pastor in Brunn im Felde, where he retired at the beginning of September 1978. He then lived in Herzogenburg Abbey until his health deteriorated so badly in 1980 that he had to be transferred to the Elisabethheim nursing home in St. Pölten.