Dr. Karl Kummer

After graduating from the humanistic grammar school in Vienna-Hietzing in 1923, Karl Kummer first studied chemistry for two semesters at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Vienna and then switched to studying law and political science in Vienna. In 1923, he joined the Aargau student fraternity. He was particularly interested in social policy and social science according to the principles of Catholic social teaching. After gaining his doctorate in law, he spent four years practising in court and was then briefly employed by the State Disability Office until 1934, when he became head of the legal department of the Vienna Chamber of Labor and later its executive secretary. Impressed by the work of the "big city apostle" Carl Sonnenschein (1876-1929), he had already organized aid campaigns for needy students and workers during his student days in order to promote a rapprochement between student and working youth. Among other things, he looked after the homeless and provided legal advice in the journeymen's association, and also worked with the Akademikerhilfe.

On the night of March 11-12, 1938, Karl Kummer was arrested and held in police custody for three weeks. He was then able to continue working at the Chamber of Labor until its dissolution on 30 June 1938. For "political reasons", he was then only given short-term work opportunities, for example as a clerk at the Reichsnährstand and then at AEG-Union. When he applied for the position of personnel officer at Wertheimer & Co in November 1942, the NSDAP General Personnel Office asked the district leadership for a political assessment. Here Karl Kummer is certified that he is "sympathetic to the Nazi movement", is of "impeccable character" and "nothing detrimental" is known about his current political conduct. At the time, however, the Gaupersonalamt was unaware that Karl Kummer had joined the resistance group around Lois Weinberger in 1942 and was in contact with the group led by Heinrich Maier, Franz Josef Messner and Walter Caldonazzi.

These various "political" assessments, which were positive for Karl Kummer at the time, enabled him to remain employed at Wertheimer & Co until the end of the war. After the war, he himself stated that he had "never applied for membership of the NSDAP or any of its branches" during the investigation into possible party affiliation in accordance with § 4 of the Prohibition Act 1947. On the occasion of the application for the issue of a victim's identity card due to the imprisonment suffered, the Vienna Magistrate and Department 2 of the Federal Ministry of the Interior re-examined any party affiliation in 1951. In a decision dated September 24, 1952, the authorities stated that they believed Karl Kummer because he had been described in all assessments as a non-member of the NSDAP and there was no evidence of any alleged party affiliation. Even if he is listed in the "Gauakten" as a "party candidate since 1938", but not as a party member, the latest investigation of the ÖVP members therefore also comes to the following conclusion:

This means that Dr. Karl Kummer belongs to the group of people whose biographies were examined in more detail, but whose NSDAP membership does not meet the criteria.