Anton Kutej

The Slovenian Austrian Anton Kutej was born out of wedlock in Klagenfurt. He lived there with his mother until he was ten years old. They then both moved to Globasnitz. The parish priest there, Jernej Pšeničnik, enabled the gifted pupil to attend grammar school in Klagenfurt from 1923, where he also received Slovenian lessons.

After graduating from high school in 1931, he entered the seminary in Klagenfurt and began studying theology. On June 27, 1937, he was ordained a priest and appointed as chaplain in the parishes of Eisenkappel/Železna Kapla, Neuhaus/Suha, Maria Elend/Podgorje and finally St. Michael ob Bleiburg/Šmihel nad Pliberkom, from March 1940.

Anton Kutej, as chaplain of St. Michael ob Bleiburg, had to deal with a fanatical national socialist opponent in the parish administration even before the German invasion of Yugoslavia. The parish secretary had fled to Germany in 1934 after the suppressed Nazi coup attempt, had joined the "Austrian Legion" there and had returned after the "Anschluss".

Anton Kutej also did not refuse to serve in the Wehrmacht from the outset when he was conscripted. However, when the parish secretary presented him with his draft card for signature, Anton Kutej refused and instead announced a consultation with the Ordinariate, which the local Nazi functionary saw as an opportunity to strike a decisive blow against Kutej.

The arrest by two Gestapo men took place immediately after mass on Easter Tuesday, March 26, 1940, at the parish church in Wackendorf/Večna vas. The head of the Klagenfurt Gestapo office, Dr. Ernst Weimann, told the Chancellor of the Ordinariate, Dr. Josef Kadras, the closest collaborator of the capitular vicar Andreas Rohracher, that Anton Kutej had refused to sign the military service pass and had made it clear that he would not do so and that German was not his mother tongue.

On June 15, 1940, Anton Kutej was deported to the Dachau concentration camp without a trial, and two months later he was taken to the Mauthausen concentration camp. There, like other, mainly Polish priests, he was forced to perform slave labor under the harshest conditions, presumably in the quarry.

When the SS began to collect all priests deported to concentration camps in Dachau towards the end of the year, Anton Kutej was also transferred back there on December 8, 1940 with a transport of priests. Anton Kutej, 31 years old and originally of strong build, returned to the Dachau concentration camp in poor physical condition; he only lived there for two months.