DDr. Otto Kemptner CanReg

Otto Kemptner stands at the cradle of two Viennese Catholic fraternities in 1908: On November 14, 1908, he founded the Bavaria secondary school fraternity and on December 4 of the same year the Franco-Bavaria student fraternity. After graduating from high school, Otto Kemptner studied philology, which he completed with a teaching degree before the First World War. During the war, he served as an anti-aircraft artilleryman. In 1920, he joined the financial service. At the same time, he studied law and political science, graduating with a doctorate in both disciplines.

Otto Kemptner played a key role in establishing the VF, which was founded on May 20, 1933. In 1933/34, he took over the position of Managing Director. He was promoted to Section Councillor in the Federal Chancellery. From November 1934, he was President of the Salzburg Financial Directorate.

After the Anschluss, Otto Kemptner was one of the first people to be arrested in Salzburg, but was able to return home after interrogation. On March 24, 1938, he was arrested again, taken off duty and transferred to the police prison on Rudolfsplatz as a "protective custody prisoner". He had to remain there, together with Leonhard Steinwender and others, without a court order and without being charged with a crime, until October 15, 1938. He was then transferred to the Dachau concentration camp, where he was subjected to "special treatment" in the bunker etc., which caused him to suffer serious damage to his health, before being transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp on September 26, 1939. He was released due to illness on October 12, 1939, as can be seen from the police registration file in Salzburg. He initially returns to Salzburg, where his sister Emma takes care of him. He then retired to the former Pulgarn monastery near Steyregg, which belonged to St. Florian Abbey and served as a refuge for the persecuted Augustinian canons during the Nazi era.

On November 11, 1942, he applied for admission to the Augustinian canons. Shortly before his ordination to the priesthood, he died on May 3, 1944 as a result of his imprisonment in the Elisabethinenspital in Linz. He found his final resting place in the priests' cemetery in St. F1orian.