DI Walter Caldonazzi
Personalia
Born:
Died:
Profession:
Persecution:
Imprisoned 25.02.1944,
Executed (murdered) on January 09, 1945 at 6:04 p.m.
Memberships
Curriculum Vitae
Walter Caldonazzi - born in Mals in South Tyrol - spent his childhood in Kramsach in North Tyrol, where his family moved after the First World War. He attended grammar school in Kufstein, where he joined the secondary school fraternity Cimbria Kufstein in 1931.
In 1933, he suffered a serious accident, as a result of which he needed a walking stick due to a walking disability. After graduating from high school, he moved to Vienna and began studying forestry at the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences. In 1937, he joined the student fraternity Amelungia.
He soon joins the resistance organization of Chaplain Heinrich Maier, a member of the student fraternity Nibelungia Wien, as a leading functionary. Through Walter Caldonazzi's initiative, a branch group was also formed in Kramsach, made up of workers and employees of the Achenrain brass factory.
On February 25, 1944, Walter Caldonazzi was arrested by the Gestapo. He and eight other co-defendants were accused of "from 1942 to 1944, preparing separatist treason in the Alpine and Danube floodplains and abroad by building up an Austrian resistance movement, producing and distributing anti-state leaflets, posting inflammatory inscriptions, establishing contact with enemy countries, attempting to enable French prisoners of war to escape and betraying site plans of German armaments factories abroad [...]" as well as having incapacitated conscripts by procuring fever-inducing medication.
The charge is "making Austria independent to the detriment of the German Reich". The trial took place on October 27/28, 1944 before the People's Court I in Vienna. The trial for "preparation for high treason, favoring the enemy, espionage and subversion of military power" ends with a death sentence by guillotine and loss of honorary rights for life. Another charge is not included in the verdict:
"Apparently prompted by the frequent conversations about the necessity of separatist propaganda, the accused Caldonazzi also believed he had to make a contribution. He painted the following slogans in blue chalk on the house of a German from the Altreich: 'Austria to the Austrians! Piefke out! Nazi bastard'".
Despite unbearable torture and abuse, he did not betray any of his co-conspirators. The sentence was carried out on January 9, 1945 at 6.04 pm in the Vienna Provincial Court and he was murdered. According to the testimony of the prison priest Eduard Köck, he called out to his executioners:
"Heavenly Father, please do not count this bloody deed as a sin against my murderers; Lord forgive them, for they know not what they do! Draw near my God to you! Long live Christ the King! These are my last thoughts! Farewell all you dear ones! - Your Walter"
["Long live Austria!" is not documented].
Walter Caldonazzi was initially buried in a shaft grave in Vienna's Central Cemetery on January 10, 1945 in accordance with the regulations at the time, then on June 14, 1947 on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Amelungia on the initiative of his federal brother Pastor Josef Enzmann he was reburied in the monastery cemetery in Breitenfurt near Vienna. On October 26, 1975, his remains were exhumed again and finally buried in the family grave of his sister Herta at Pradl Cemetery in Innsbruck.
"[...] My days and hours are already numbered, know that I gladly lay down my life for my homeland, although the thought of my Heidi and Hertha costs me many a bitter tear. You know that I have always been an opponent of war, always an enemy of mindless Prussian militarism. Don't reproach me, please, this horrible death was predestined for me, I bear my fate fully and faithfully as a loyal Christian. I would have one joy, that is, please: Place a memorial for me in the most beautiful place in the world, as it seemed to me, at the Almkranz on the Praa-Alm with the request for prayer and the words 'O land of Tyrol, my only happiness, to you be my last gaze! [...]"
His Amelungia fulfilled this wish with the memorial plaque on the "Caldonazzi Cross", which was blessed on September 18, 1993 high up in the Wildschönau and dedicated as a new Amelungen memorial and pilgrimage site.
Members of Walter Caldonazzi's prisoners include resistance fighters from the Group Messner-Maier-Caldonazzi as well as members of the Austrian Freedom Movement.
The encounter with his federal brother Ernst Ortner in the provincial court is also tragic:
"[...] Ernst Ortner, Lienz, went to secondary school with me and was also a Cimber. I'll see you here again after ten years! [...]"
Places
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Multimedia
Citations
Krause, Peter/Reinelt, Herbert/Schmitt, Helmut (2020): Farbe tragen, Farbe bekennen. Katholische Korporierte in Widerstand und Verfolgung. Teil 2. Kuhl, Manfred (ÖVfStG, Wien) S. 41-43. Photo: Archiv K.Ö.H.V. Amelungia
