Ernst Ortner
Personalia
Born:
Died:
Profession:
Persecution:
Imprisoned 20.07.1943 - 22.03.1945, murdered in Vienna Provincial Court on 22.03.1945
Memberships
Curriculum Vitae
Born in Innsbruck, Ernst Ortner attended grammar school in Lienz, St. Paul im Lavanttal and Kufstein, where he became a member of the secondary school fraternity Cimbria Kufstein in 1931. As he obviously did not find suitable work, he spent a few months with relatives in Niedertal in Pustertal (South Tyrol). He is a member of the Heimwehr until 1934. After being drafted in September 1934, he joined the Tyrolean Kaiserjäger Regiment No. 6 in Lienz as a volunteer in November 1934.
After the Anschluss, he was accepted into the German Wehrmacht, where he served as a sergeant major in Air Intelligence Regiment No. 14 in Kremsier. At the Klagenfurt air base, where he was stationed until May 1942, he met the air force sergeant Eduard Pumpernig at the end of 1941. Together with other cartel brothers, he joined the resistance group "Antifascist Freedom Movement of Austria
"Carinthians. Our homeland is in distress!"
Brown criminals have betrayed our homeland!"
Our sons are bleeding and falling on the fronts for a brown criminality.
The brown traitors to the people are at home in warm offices and robbing the people.Carinthians, get to work! Out with the brown bigwigs to the front.
Carinthia and our Austria must be free again from the Prussian yoke!
All united against the brown criminals! Long live Carinthia!Carinthians! Let's fight against the emissaries of Prussian imperialism:
Whether socialist, Catholic, communist, it's all the same, it's about the homeland, about Austria!"
Later, the preparation of explosives and arson attacks as well as the procurement of weapons are discussed at the meetings. In April 1943, Ernst Ortner arranges contact with his brother-in-law Arthur Trattler, who is on furlough. He agrees to draft another leaflet calling on all Austrians and Slovenians to take action:
"[...] The kingdom of freedom, the kingdom of peace, the kingdom of united nations, the holy kingdom be the slogan of our struggle, be the slogan of our death."
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After being betrayed by an informer, Ernst Ortner was arrested on 20 July 1943 "for working for a legitimist secret organization" and imprisoned in the Wehrmacht remand prison in Vienna-Favoriten, Hardtmuthgasse. Here he met his brother, Walter Caldonazzi, who had also been arrested and later executed.
In the trial from August 9, 1944 - August 11, 1944 before the 5th Senate of the People's Court in Vienna. Senate of the People's Court in Vienna, Ernst Ortner and twelve arrested comrades were charged with "preparation for high treason, subversion of military power and favoring the enemy" and sentenced to death. Accused offenses against § 5 RSSVO [Wehrkraftzersetzung] and § 91b RStGB [Feindbegünstigung] usually end with a death sentence. Ernst Ortner was particularly accused of having "shamefully broken" his oath to Adolf Hitler as a member of the Wehrmacht. The reasons for the verdict include the following:
"The defendants [Eduard] Pumpernig, Dr. Granig, Primosch, [Ernst] Ortner, [Karl] Krumpf, Dr. Steinwender and Dr. [Wilhelm] Pieller set up an organization with Habsburg-separatist aims in the years 1941-1943, above all in Carinthia, or participated in these anti-state activities as accomplices. Ortner, ... and Dr. Pieller also produced or distributed anti-state appeals or otherwise made themselves available for these activities."
The convicts remain in the prison of the LG in Vienna until the sentence is carried out. The six death sentences are all carried out. The sentence on Ernst Ortner is carried out on the last execution date in the Vienna Provincial Court on 22 March 1945.
Citations
- Krause, Peter/Reinelt, Herbert/Schmitt, Helmut (2020): Farbe tragen, Farbe bekennen. Katholische Korporierte in Widerstand und Verfolgung. Teil 2. Kuhl, Manfred (ÖVfStG, Wien), p. 239/240.
Photo: Dokumentationsarchiv des Österreichischen Widerstands unter www.doew.at; Stand: 03.12.2022.
