Dr. Anton Klotz

Anton Klotz attended the state grammar school in Brixen and studied law in Innsbruck after graduating in 1909. In 1909, he was accepted into the Raeto-Bavaria student fraternity. He became active as a journalist early on and, after obtaining his doctorate in law, joined the Tyrolia publishing house. After the beginning of the First World War, he is drafted into the k. u. k.

After the war, he became editor of several South Tyrolean newspapers, including the weekly "Das neue Reich", the "Brixener Chronik" and the "Tiroler", the predecessor of the "Dolomiten". As his resolute advocacy of the rights of the German-speaking population in South Tyrol was undesirable, he was expelled from the country by the Italians in 1921. He then worked as editor-in-chief of the "Tiroler Anzeiger". In 1936, he became head of the Federal Press Service at the Federal Chancellery in Vienna.

Immediately after the Anschluss, he was arrested in March 1938 and taken to the Vienna police prison. From here, he was transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp on September 25, 1938. Until his release on May 8, 1941, he worked here temporarily in the carpentry detachment. After his release, he returned to Tyrol and made contact with the resistance group Allton von Hradetzky.