Dr. Hans Janauschek

After graduating from Kollegium Kalksburg, Hans Janauschek began studying at the Hochschule für Welthandel. Four months after Georg Krasser, he is admitted to the student fraternity Norica in 1937. From 1937, Hans Janauschek underwent one year of voluntary officer training in the Austrian Armed Forces.

After the Anschluss, Hans Janauschek was accepted into the Wehrmacht. In September 1939, he took part in the war against Poland. During this time, he suffers pneumonia, which has health consequences. He was therefore not deployed to the front again. From 1940 to 1945 (with a brief interruption), he was adjutant to the commander of Artillery Replacement and Training Section 109 in military district XVII, which was based in Brno [today: Brno in the Czech Republic] from August 1, 1941.

In February 1942, a resistance group consisting of Austrians of various ideological persuasions began to form among the clerks of this section, headed by First Lieutenant Hans Janauschek. Although his condition worsened during the war, he remained in his military function in the interests of the resistance.

In collaboration with doctors who were members of the ÖCV, such as Franz Ritschl and Albert Rheinberger, this resistance group succeeds in saving around 150 soldiers, who come from Austria and are anti-Nazi, from being sent back to the front. Hans Janauschek also started the resistance group as part of the 'O5' around Johann Wollinger in Vienna with pistols, ammunition and hand grenades. Hans Janauschek becomes the resistance group's central liaison in the Artillery Replacement Division 109 to Major Carl Szokoll of the Wehrkreiskommando XVII in Vienna, where a resistance group is being set up within the Wehrmacht in the greater Vienna area, which later becomes the 'Operation Radetzky' [rescue of Vienna by handing it over to the Soviet troops without a fight].

In December 1944, Abteilung 109 was relocated from Brno to Amstetten and placed under the immediate command of Wehrkreiskommando XVII. When it was ordered to defend the "Erlaufstellung" against the advancing Soviet troops, this order was not obeyed. Instead, members of the Artillerie-Ersatzabteilung 109 arrested the top Nazi and SS officials in Amstetten. In the first days of May 1945, the Amstetten district court therefore issues a verdict by a summary court presided over by district leader Neumayer, in which the commander of Division I 09, Captain Viktor Estermann, his adjutant Hans Janauschek, the non-commissioned officer Georg Krasser and sergeant Karl Hanel are sentenced to death by hanging in absentia. However, this had no immediate consequences for Estermann, Janauschek and Krasser. Karl Hanel, on the other hand, was arrested, liberated, seriously wounded in a brief battle between the SS and members of Department 109 and died. After the withdrawal of all units of Army Group South/East Mark passing through the Amstetten area, Hans Janauschek went to his family in Upper Austria.