DDr. Hans Karl Frhr. Zeßner von Spitzenberg

Hans Karl Frhr. Zeßner von Spitzenberg, son of a long-established Bohemian landowner, was born at Dobritschan Castle (Dobrícany, north-western Bohemia, south-east of Saaz [Zatec]), was initially privately educated and attended the Imperial and Royal Humanistic Grammar School in Saaz [Zatec] from the fall of 1895. After graduating in 1903, he went to Prague and enrolled at the law faculty of the German Karl Ferdinand University. In 1905, he moved to Fribourg [Freiburg im Üechtland] in Switzerland and joined the student fraternity Teutonia, a bold step for young aristocrats at the time. As a student, he introduced a collective labor and wage agreement for the workers on his father's estate, a novelty at the time. In 1908, he returned to Prague and passed his state examination in law. There he also became a member of Ferdinandea Prague. The following year, he obtained his doctorate in law and moved to Berlin to study agricultural and national economics until 1911, obtaining his doctorate in economics in 1912. He then began his professional career as a concept trainee at the Imperial-Royal Governor's Office in Prague and was transferred to the Agricultural Statistics Department of the Central Statistical Commission in Vienna in 1913.

During the First World War, Hans Karl Frhr. Zeßner von Spitzenberg was employed by the BH in Braunau am Inn as unfit for military service and was appointed to the Imperial-Royal Ministry of Agriculture as a section councillor in May 1918. Although he was a member of the party council of the Christian Social Party (CSP), one year later he was appointed to the Constitutional Office of the State Chancellery (Federal Chancellery) by the Social Democratic State Chancellor Dr. Karl Renner (1870-1950), where he worked for twelve years. In 1920, he was awarded the Venia Legendi at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, where he initially taught constitutional and administrative law as a private lecturer and from 1931 as an associate professor.

In Vienna, he joined the student fraternity Nibelungia, where he became a member in 1924. In 1926 he became a member of the secondary school fraternity Ottonia (now merged with Vindobona I) and in 1936 of the secondary school fraternity Ostgau.

Hans Karl Frhr. Zeßner von Spitzenberg also felt connected to the Austrian imperial house in the Republic and was the only Austrian university professor to take part in the doctorate of Otto von Habsburg in Leuven (Belgium). He also worked towards the canonization of the last Austrian Emperor Charles I (1916-1918) and published the "Emperor Charles Memorial Yearbooks" from 1928-1938. Charles I was then canonized by Pope John Paul Il. [Karol Woityla] (1978-2003) on October 3, 2004 with the commemoration day October 21, the wedding anniversary of the imperial couple.

As a convinced monarchist, Hans Karl Frhr. Zeßner von Spitzenberg, together with August M. Knüll, Alfred Missong and Ernst Karl Winter, was convinced that Austria must cultivate its supranational character of the Danube Monarchy and fulfil a bridging function in South-Eastern Europe. This led to the founding of the "Austrian Action" in his house in the fall of 1926 - for an independent Austria and against the German nationalist tendencies: "in the emphasis on the European idea, the Austrian in itself should be preserved". They were committed to the principles of the Catholic social doctrine of Karl von Vogelsang (1818-1890). Hans Karl Frhr. Zeßner von Spitzenberg became a member of the Federal Cultural Council between 1934 and 1938 and spokesman for the Catholic private schools, to which he felt particularly attached. He also headed the VF's Traditionsreferat.

Hans Karl Frhr. Zeßner von Spitzenberg also came into contact with the student fraternity founded in 1922, the Katholisch-Österreichische Landsmannschaft Maximiliana, which endeavoured to found a legitimist association of Austrian corporations through daughter fraternities, and became a member in 1926. In 1933, he was one of the co-founders of the Akademischer Bund Katholisch-Österreichischer Landsmannschaften (KÖL) and was a founding member of the Ferdinandea (KÖL) in Graz. He subsequently received the memberships of all the associations of the then KÖL.

After the Hitler-Schuschnigg meeting in Berchtesgaden on February 12, 1938, he is prepared for the worst and calls for demonstrations. Time and again, he publicly emphasized the incompatibility of National Socialism with the "Austrian man". He thus made himself the arch-enemy of the National Socialists.

His apartment was searched immediately after the Anschluss and a large amount of material was confiscated, while he was able to remain in hiding for a few more days - six more house searches followed. On March 14, 1938, he received the news from a student that he was "on leave" as a university professor. [In the last issue of the magazine "Der christliche Ständestaat" No. 10 from March 13, 1938, he calls for participation in the planned referendum on Sunday, March 13 with the article "Jetzt heraus mit dem Bekenntnis!". This issue can no longer be delivered due to the events of the Anschluss in Vienna.

On March 18, 1938, Hans Karl Frhr. Zeßner von Spitzenberg and his wife attend the 8 o'clock mass in the crypt of the parish church "Maria Schmerzen" in Kaasgraben in Vienna-Döbling and are arrested away from the altar - a memorial plaque on the right outer wall of the church has commemorated this since 2005.

When questioned by the prisoners about his name and the reason for his imprisonment, he replied: "University professor Federal Councillor of Culture Baron Zeßner von Spitzenberg; because I am active in a leading position in a monarchist movement in Austria." After six weeks in the Elisabethpromenade police prison, he was transferred to Vienna Regional Court on April 29, 1938. From here, he was transferred to the concentration camp on the fourth Dachau transport on July 15, 1938. During the transport, Hans Karl Frhr. Zeßner von Spitzenberg was kicked in the abdomen by an SS man with the heel of his boot, causing him to arrive ill at the camp, and the kidney injuries he suffered led to his death.

"Because I see faith in God and in a Christian Austria under the leadership of the House of Habsburg as the only salvation for the independence and autonomy of my fatherland."

Because of this "report" about himself demanded by the camp commander upon arrival at the concentration camp, he was assigned to punishment block 15, a block separated from the rest of the camp by a barbed wire fence.

Despite a serious injury, he had to perform extremely hard labor in extreme heat, with severely swollen legs and a high fever of over 40 degrees. Although he was allowed bed rest from July 29, 1938, he had to stand for hours in the midday heat during a punishment roll call on July 30, 1938, until he collapsed. A fellow prisoner [Prof. Karl Adamik] describes these scenes in a letter to Hans Karl Frhr. Zeßner von Spitzenberg's wife Elisabeth dated July 28, 1948.

On July 31, 1938, Hans Karl Frhr. Zeßner von Spitzenberg was taken to the infirmary, but too late. He died the next day at the age of 53 in Dachau concentration camp. He was the first Austrian to be murdered in a concentration camp. The official cause of death was that he had succumbed to "double-sided pneumonia". His body was buried in the Grinzing cemetery on August 6, 1938 after the requiem in the Kaasgrabenkirche

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