Dr. Walter Ortner

Walter Ortner attended elementary school and grammar school in Kremsmünster. After graduating from high school, he began studying law at the University of Vienna in 1926 and was accepted into the Kürnberg student fraternity in the same year. He then moved to Graz and graduated as Doctor iuris in 1932. After a year in court in Gmunden and Wels, he initially worked as a clerk for a lawyer in Gmunden and then joined the Upper Austrian provincial government in 1935.

After the Anschluss, he was immediately arrested on March 12, 1938 as a government commissioner at the district administration in Ried and local leader of the student group of the Austrian Young People and detained at the district court in Ried. He was released after three days and placed under house arrest. He was later arrested and interrogated twice more by the Gestapo. He was forcibly removed from office and retired. After a year of unemployment, he finds a job as a payroll accountant in the air force. During the Second World War, he was deployed as an FLAK soldier in the Ruhr area and in Poland. In May 1945, he was taken prisoner of war by the Russians and was able to return to Austria in November 1945.