Christian Hiller

Christian Hiller attended grammar school in Hall/Tyrol and became a member of the Sternkorona Hall secondary school fraternity in 1900. After graduating from high school, he studied theology at the seminary in Brixen from 1903 to 1906. After ordination to the priesthood (1905), he worked first as an assistant priest in Schwarzach (Vorarlberg) from 1906 to 1907 and then as a religious education teacher and student chaplain at the Bundesgymnasium in Dornbirn from 1907 to 1938. In 1931, he became an honorary member of the student fraternity Norica.

1934-1938, he also took on political responsibility and was a member of the Vorarlberg state parliament (representative for art and science) and state director of the VF welfare organization "Neues Leben".

Immediately after the Anschluss, he was dismissed from the teaching profession without a pension. During house searches and confiscations at the seminary where he worked as a theology professor, he was severely provoked by his former students. He then moved to Bezau as a priest from 1939 to 1951. On November 28, 1940, Christian Hiller was arrested and held in police custody in Bregenz for ten days. He was accused, as was subsequently discovered: "Hiller's guilt lay in the fact that he had said mass in the war memorial chapel in November without having applied for permission from the parish to which the chapel belonged" (Wanner 1972).

He was banned from the Gau for nine months and spent time in Lindau.