Regierungsrat Eduard Pumpernig

Eduard Pumpernig was born in Scheifling in Styria, the son of an innkeeper and butcher. After elementary school and grammar school, he joined the Franciscan order and began studying theology, which he did not complete and left the order.

After the outbreak of World War II, he volunteered for the Wehrmacht, trained as an airman and was transferred to the flying school in Carinthia in January 1940. As an opponent of National Socialism, he made the acquaintance of the priest Anton Granig in 1941, who was also a staunch opponent of National Socialism. They began to campaign against National Socialism. In July 1941, for example, Eduard Pumpernig wrote slogans such as "Austria awake!" or "Heil Österreich!" in oil paint on facades. Other freedom fighters subsequently joined the group around Anton Granig and Eduard Pumpernig. They produced appeals and in February/March 1942 the group finally gave itself the name "Antifascist Freedom Movement Austria" (AFÖ) and attempted to become a structured, broader resistance movement. Possible attacks, from fire and explosives attacks against infrastructural and National Socialist targets, are considered. Cooperation with socialist-communist groups and Slovenian resistance groups was also sought.

On June 3, 1943, Eduard Pumpernig was arrested by the Gestapo. During interrogation by the Gestapo, he confessed and testified about the organization of the AFÖ, which incriminated other members. This allowed him to escape the death penalty. On August 11, 1944, Eduard Pumpernig was sentenced to 10 years in prison by the People's Court. He remained in prison until the end of the war.

After the war, he was one of the founding members of the ÖVP Styria and became a provincial civil servant of Styria in 1946. In 1974 he became a member of the Federal Council, later Chairman of the Federal Council and was active in the ÖVP Kameradschaft der politisch Verfolgten und Bekenner für Österreich. He died in Graz in 1992.

The fact that Eduard Pumpernig confessed in order to escape the death penalty - but thereby incriminated other members of the AFÖ - is sometimes viewed critically and has led to heated controversy in the past. It should also be mentioned that although he incriminated other members of the AFÖ, he staged himself as a leading resistance fighter after the war, which led to further controversy after his inglorious confessions during his Gestapo detention became known.

The authors of this website thought long and hard about whether he should be commemorated here, but came to the conclusion that he should be remembered in his role as a resistance fighter - not for his actions during his detention or after the war. However, he certainly stands for the gray areas of retrospective evaluation. Due to the complexity of his actions, it is his person in particular that inspires intense debate.