Oberst Josef Alois Gamohn

Josef Alois Gamohn was born in Feldkirch in Vorarlberg, the legitimate son of the railroad fitter Alois Gamohn and Christine, née Lisch. After completing his schooling, in 1900 he joined the k.u.k. military. On November 17, 1904, he transferred to the Vienna Security Guard. In 1912 he married Margarethe Waas and subsequently became the father of a daughter. As a policeman, he was not drafted into the I. World War I. In Vienna, he witnessed the defeat of Austria-Hungary, the dismantling of the dual monarchy and the expulsion of the Habsburgs.

In the authoritarian corporative state, Josef Gamohn, who had in the meantime been appointed lieutenant colonel of the police and a member of the Vienna police command, is likely to have adopted a clear anti-Nazi stance. Immediately after the occupation of Austria by the German Wehrmacht on March 12, 1938, he was suspended from duty as 'politically unreliable' and dismissed on November 4, 1938 through forced retirement. He and his family lived on a minimum pension for the entire period of the occupation of Austria by the German National Socialists.

In 1944, he fell in the dark at night and seriously injured his thigh. On April 11, 1945, while the battle for the liberation of Vienna was still raging, Josef Gamohn was reinstated as a policeman in the already liberated parts of Vienna. As a policeman, he witnessed the liberation of Austria and the re-establishment of the Republic. He is officially rehabilitated and promoted to police colonel. Josef Gamohn joins the newly founded Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) and the ÖVP-Kameradschaft der politisch Verfolgten und Bekenner für Österreich.