Dkfm. Willy Klein

Willy Klein was born in Vienna in 1914, the son of a Catholic and a Jewish woman. After attending elementary school, he graduated from Vienna's Schubertgymnasium in 1931. He then enrolled in commercial science at the University of World Trade. His father died in the same year. Willy Klein joins the Ottonen student fraternity in 1932. The fraternity is located at Altmünstergasse 4 in Vienna's 9th district. He completed his studies in 1934 and began working in a bank.

Willy Klein was a senior member of the Ottonen student fraternity when they decided to formally disband and join the resistance on March 12, 1938, the day of the occupation of Austria by Hitler's Germany. At this meeting, Karl Burian is appointed as the new chairman. At this point, Willy Klein has already hidden the lists of members of the association. Willy Klein is supposed to go to France after submitting the alleged self-dissolution, especially as he is considered a "half-Jew" according to the Nuremberg racial laws.

On March 16, 1938, Willy Klein brings the report of the alleged self-dissolution to the association police. However, he was summoned by the Gestapo due to the missing membership lists and detained for three days. He is beaten and loses a tooth. He is released with the help of two non-aligned officials, but immediately flees to Paris via Switzerland, where he acts as a liaison to the exile resistance around Otto von Habsburg. He remained in the city until December 1938, survived a hydrogen cyanide attack by the National Socialists and was transferred to the Lot et Garonne department in south-western France after the French authorities tightened their stance towards refugees. After the invasion of France by Hitler's Germany, he lived there undetected as a "submarine". This is how he experienced the end of the war.

After the war, he married Giséle and lived with her in Montpellier, France. He had three sons with Giséle. Willy Klein worked his way up to become director of "Crédit Agricole", traveled extensively and often returned to his original home, where he met up with his old friends from the Ottonen student fraternity. He died in Montpellier in 1989.