Hofrat Dr. Josef Windisch

Josef Windisch grew up in Vienna-Penzing in a family of seven and had to contribute to their upkeep. He spent most of his youth with his brothers at the Calasantine monastery in Reinlgasse. His deep Christian social understanding was particularly influenced here by the work of the great Viennese apostle to the working class, Father Anton Maria Schwartz. It was also there that he learned to value all work and an unwavering love of his homeland, which he then demonstrated as a member of the Austrian Young People in the fight against Nazi propaganda. After completing compulsory schooling, he learns the trade of goldsmith.

After the occupation of Austria by the Third Reich on 12 March 1938, the young goldsmith joins the resistance group Austrian Front/Austrian Movement [group around Friedrich Theiss], where he works together with Alois Döttling to set up a defense group - the monastery in Reinlgasse and the locked warehouse of Josef Windisch's father's hardware store serve as valuable bases. The group was exposed when one of its members, the anti-aircraft gunner Leopold Buliczek, tried to cross the Hungarian border secretly in Pamhagen on December 12, 1939 and was arrested as a deserter. In the course of the investigations conducted against him at the Reich Court Martial in Vienna, Leopold Buliczek confesses that an anti-state organization exists in Vienna and provides the organizational structure as well as the names of various group members.

On 7/8 February 1940, the Gestapo then carries out a wave of arrests among the members of the Austrian Front. The arrested members of the group, including Josef Windisch, were taken into police custody due to the risk of conspiracy. After initial interrogations at the Morzinplatz Gestapo headquarters, they are transferred to the Elisabethpromenade police detention center on Rossauer Lände. The reasons given for the protective custody order were "activity hostile to the state" and "high treason". At the end of May 1940, the prisoners on remand were transferred to the Vienna Regional Court. Josef Windisch was handed over to the Gestapo from custody on August 12, 1940 and released from there on November 15, 1940.

On December 8, 1941, the Special Court II at the Regional Court of Vienna brings criminal proceedings against 31 members of the Austrian Front who, according to the indictment, are alleged to have committed the crime under Section 2 of the Law against the Formation of Political Parties between 1938 and 1940. [indictment no. 3 S Js 663/41]. They are sentenced to between four weeks and up to two years in prison and partially acquitted. Josef Windisch is sentenced to three months in prison on December 17, 1941 for "offenses under the law against the formation of new parties". After the trial, Josef Windisch had to return to the Wehrmacht, was temporarily transferred to a punitive unit at various locations and was taken prisoner of war by the Soviets in Brno in April 1945.

On October 24, 1947, he returned to Vienna after spending two and a half years in a camp in the Crimea. The court verdict handed down at the time is annulled in accordance with § 4 of the Repeal and Discontinuation Act of July 3, 1945.

After his release, he actively participates in the reconstruction of the new Austria, is active in the ÖVP (Austrian People's Party) and makes a special contribution to the documentation of the Austrian resistance. He passes the vocational school-leaving examination and studies law and languages alongside his job, initially in the police service. In 1955 he married Theresia Maria Lolei. Following his convictions, he joins the student fraternity Pannonia Wien in 1969, with which he has had good contact for many years through his brother. In January 1972, he graduated as Dr. iuris and then moved to the Financial Directorate.