Dr. Ludwig Steiner
Personalia
Born:
Died:
Profession:
Persecution:
Resistance fighter (undiscovered)
Memberships
Curriculum Vitae
Ludwig Steiner attended primary and secondary school in his birthplace of Innsbruck. He reports on the incidents at the Anschluss, including:
"We [the youth group at the Jesuits in Innsbruck under the leadership of Fr. Dr. Alois Schrott (1905-1980)] were bitterly disappointed when the federal government's call to avoid hostilities was heard on the radio. I was particularly shocked by the manhunt that began immediately; the president of the Chamber of Labor was arrested and beaten in our house on the night of the coup; I was also impressed by the tearing down of the red-white-red flag from the barracks of the 6th Mountain Brigade Command by federal police officers with swastika armbands in front of a cheering crowd."
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In order to escape a membership of the HJ, together with a group of friends from the Catholic youth and the pathfinders, he founded a youth hostel.
"We had normal paramedic training and also did exercises and rescue missions. That's how we escaped the HJ."
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His father Ludwig (1872-1941) was arrested in September 1939 as a Christian-socialist local councillor in Innsbruck and held in police custody for some time before being transferred to Dachau concentration camp. During this time, Ludwig Steiner was taken away from school to the Gestapo four times in order to obtain further incriminating material against his father, "because they obviously had too little accusatory material. [...] I was interrogated about this for hours. There were also beatings if the interrogation did not proceed as desired."
In 1941, Ludwig Steiner graduated from the commercial academy in Innsbruck. He was then called up to the Reich Labor Service [RAD] in the Derneburg labor camp near Hildesheim/Lower Saxony and deployed to Cognac in France in April. He was then drafted into the German Wehrmacht in the Gebirgsjäger Ersatzbataillon 136 (Geb.Jg. Ersatz Btl. 136) in Innsbruck. Because his "external service aptitude is not given", he is not promoted to officer at the war college in Wr. Neustadt. As a member of the 2nd Mountain Division, 2nd Battalion of the 1st Battalion 136, he was seriously wounded in 1943 during an operation on the Arctic Ocean front [Sapadnaya Liza] 34 km from Murmansk. After his recovery, he returned to Geb.Jg. Ersatz Btl. 136 in Innsbruck and became battalion adjutant there.
Here begins its activities in the “Resistance movement 05“and the construction of resistance groups within the Wehrmacht in all the barracks of the Innsbrucker Garnison, especially among the members of the student company. Major Werner Heine, his battalion chief, is the military leader of the Resistance Group.
“Another problem was how international contacts could be established. We also saw the sense of resistance in making the bombing of Innsbruck and Tyrol militaryly superfluous by actions. We were aware that Tyrol was a particularly sensitive point of the North-South and East-West trail. In this context, we were very interested in finding ways of contacting the Americans or the British.
[...]
The contacts were important to the members of the so-called student companies in Innsbruck, in which officers and soldiers who were free to study were grouped, e.g. physicians, technicians, chemists, etc. Connections could be established through one or the other university professor or in cooperation with illegally active Catholic student connections with great reliability. However, such students were usually only for one semester to study. ‘
In November 1944, Geb.Jg. Replacement Btl. 136 transferred from Salzburg to Wolfsberg in Carinthia by order of the General Command XVIII. This threatens to break the previous resistance work. At the end of January/beginning of February 1945, Ludwig Steiner will receive a study holiday until the end of the war, and so he and some of his fellow members, including Major Heine, will be able to resume their resistance in Innsbruck and expand them through new contacts and support of the student companies.
Ludwig Steiner is also involved in the development of an air landing plan for the Allies in the Inntal and as reserve room Kitzbühel-St. Johann, the 16th April 1945 is completed and forwarded.
“The air landing plan also included a deployment plan for our resistance groups to eliminate the command structures in Tyrol. In the development of this plan of an air landing operation, there was a constant contact with Dr. Gruber, who became increasingly clearer as a political coordinator and recognized chief of resistance activities. ‘
Karl Gruber a.k.a. “Dr. Brand” returns from Berlin in March 1945 and now becomes the political head of resistance, Ludwig Steiner immediately contacts him.
“The first conversation was impressive right from the start. Dr. Gruber said, “Yes, look,” we are now in a situation where no man has to fear the Gestapo. The Gestapo must be afraid of us.” [...] The actual activities for the takeover of power in Innsbruck started on April 30th and May 1st. It took action by the military team under the leadership of Dr. Grubers and under the military direction Major Heines. It was the plan to take over the barracks first and then to try to occupy certain important facilities, such as the stations in Aldrans, the country house and other positions and to secure important traffic routes. ‘
“[...] Innsbruck must be liberated before the Americans come”that has Karl Gruber all involved. In the hand stroke, the tops of party and Wehrmacht gathered in the casino at the Hungerburg are captured. On May 2, 1945 in the afternoon, all the Wehrmachtskasernen in Innsbruck and the Gendarmeriekaserne are in the hands of the resistance groups. After the conquest of the country house in Innsbruck on 2.5.1945, Ludwig Steiner will contact the advancing American troops of the 103rd US Infantry Division (“Cactus Divion”) in Reith near Seelfeld. It carries an armband with the two-language stamp “Austrian movement of Liberation – 05 – Tyrol” or “DIE AUSTRIAIC EQUIPMENT – 05”.
He is significantly involved in the liberation of Innsbruck. The night of the 3rd May the American troops can march in Innsbruck.
Ludwig Steiner began his studies in the economy in 1943 at the Faculty of Law and State Sciences of the University of Innsbruck, interrupted by warfare and released February 1945 until the end of the war;after the Sponsion 1947 to the Diplom Volkswirt [Dipl.-Vw.] he completed his studies in 1948 with the doctorate for Dr. rer. soc. oec.
Immediately after the end of the war, Ludwig Steiner is also politically active: he becomes co-founder of the ÖVP in Tyrol, in 1945 first Secretary of the Provisional Head of State of Tyrol, Karl Gruber and 1946–1948 of the Mayor of Innsbruck Anton Melzer, and in May 1945 he becomes a member of the Provisional Tyrolean Landtag. In 1948 he enters the diplomatic service at the Federal Chancellery in Vienna, becomes an employee at the Austrian Embassy in Paris, a messenger in Sofia, State Secretary, ambassador in Athens and then takes over the direction of the office of the Federal Chancellery in Innsbruck.
After further diplomatic posts and cooperation in the Federal Government as well as as as a National Council, he is on 20. December 2000 as Chairman of the Austrian Reconciliation Fund (ÖVF) for the compensation of former NS forces and as a member of the Board of Directors of the European Consultation Centre for Racism and Xenophobia. 1994–2011 he is also Vice-President of the Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance (DÖW) and from 2011 honorary member.
Places
Residence:
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), p. 338–340.
