Obstlt. Dr. Karl Grebenz

Karl Grebenz was born in Höflein, the son of a gendarmerie post commander. He attends primary, secondary and military school and then the military academy in Wiener Neustadt. He embarks on a military career. At the outbreak of the First World War, he is a major. While attempting to leave Pezemysl in a balloon, he is taken prisoner of war in Russia, where he suffers a lifelong gastrointestinal illness.

After his return from captivity, he studies law at the University of Vienna and graduates in 1924. He becomes a police officer and finally retires just before the occupation of Austria by the Third Reich on March 1, 1938.

When the Wehrmacht invades, the convinced legitimist and opponent of National Socialism is imprisoned for six hours and again after the Munich assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler. At this time, he was living in Graz, where the police there advised him to move to Vienna in 1940.

Through Vinzenz Hauser and Karl Hans Karasek, Karl Grebenz came into contact with Karl Wanner, who introduced him to the Lamberti Circle at the beginning of 1942, when it was already part of the Antifascist Freedom Movement of Austria (AFÖ) around the pastor Anton Granig and the former Member of Parliament Karl Krumpl. He was a frequent guest and took an active part in discussions about the collapse of the Third Reich.

When the AFÖ was exposed in 1943, Karl Grebenz was arrested on February 8, 1943 and sentenced to three years in prison for "failure to report a highly treasonous enterprise" in the trial before the People's Court on August 15, 1944. He remained in prison until the end of the war and was released on April 7, 1945.