Dr. Franz Seywald

Franz Seywald attended the Humanist Grammar School in Salzburg. Here he was accepted into the Almgau Salzburg secondary school fraternity in 1907. He graduated in 1910 together with Franz Rehrl, who later became governor of Salzburg. Both then enrolled at the Faculty of Law at the University of Vienna and became active members of the student fraternity Austria Wien in 1910.

As he was conscripted into the Imperial and Royal Infantry Regiment no. 59. Infantry Regiment No. 59 "Archduke Rainer", he contracted a serious illness and was discharged as unfit. After the First World War, he joined the Salzburg provincial government in 1919 and was appointed district governor of St. Johann im Pongau in 1931. From 1933, he was also involved in the VF.

After the Anschluss, he was dismissed from service with a reduced pension. He was given a job by his brother, the Salzburg notary Hans Seethaler. From 1941, Franz Seywald regularly listened to foreign radio stations such as the BBC and Seromünster (Switzerland) in his own apartment or that of Karl Biack, together with other like-minded people such as Maximilian Platter and Albert Schmidinger, which was considered the most serious crime at the time. Following a denunciation by a paid Gestapo informer [an art history student], Franz Seywald, his wife Margarethe and their 17-year-old son Gottfried were arrested by the Gestapo on March 21, 1944 and imprisoned in the police prison on Georg-von-Schönerer-Platz (Rudolfsplatz) and charged with "preparation for high treason". Over the next few days, the other like-minded people join them. On the basis of the arrest warrant issued by the court on April 13, 1944, eleven of the twelve accused are remanded in custody in the prison of the district court, Schanztgasse 1. Wife Margarethe was set "free" again.

The NSDAP organ "Salzburger Zeitung" headlined on April 2, 1944 "Radio criminals arrested. Continuous interception of enemy stations". This is followed [as a deterrent] by the "pillory list" with the names of all the accused, starting with Franz Seywald. At the request of Chief Reich Prosecutor Ernst Lautz (1887-1979) on June 17, 1944, the criminal trial before the Supreme Court, presided over by Roland Freisler (1893-1945), took place in the jury courtroom of the court building on Georg-von-Schönerer-Platz in Salzburg on July 21/22, 1944, immediately after the assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler. The defendants were accused of "preparation for high treason", "favoring the enemy" pursuant to §§ 80, 83, 91b RStGB and "subversion of military power" pursuant to § 5 KSSVO. The indictment filed by the Chief Reich Prosecutor at the VGH states, among other things:

"He [Seywald] joined the Catholic CV association 'Austria Wien' in 1920 and the VF in 1933. As district governor of Markt Pangau under the Dollfuß-Schuschnigg system, he was particularly loyal to the system and fought against National Socialism and its supporters in a fanatical and spiteful manner. For this he was one of the first district governors to receive the Silver Medal of Honor of the Republic of Austria."

Karl Biack and Franz Seywald were sentenced to death by Freisler on 22 July 1944. The reasons for the sentence include:

"Franz Seywald ... from the third to the fifth year of the war, he listened to enemy radio about 150 times in his apartment in Salzburg, alone and with acquaintances. ... Together with the listeners, he then made defeatist, corrosive speeches, even allowed his adolescent son to listen in and gave a fellow citizen a Habsburg separatist leaflet to read, which called for desertion and demanded an 'alliance' with our enemies while disarming himself [refers to a pamphlet that Seywald received in the post at Christmas 1943]. Karl Biack belonged to Seywald's listening community. ... Both have thus severely attacked our confidence and our strength to fight manfully for our freedom, and in doing so have turned themselves into propagandists for the subversion of our enemies of war. They are forever dishonorable and will be punished with death."

Franz Seywald died by hanging in Salzburg prison on 24 July 1944 as the result of an alleged suicide. The official letter from the Reich Governor's Office to the Reich Ministry of the Interior dated August 7, 1944 states, among other things "Seywald hanged himself in custody shortly afterwards [after his conviction]." This version of death, "suicide by hanging", is still handed down today. Another - and probably more factual - version of Franz Seywald's death is reported by his grandson, Thomas Seywald, from the perspective of his father Gottfried, Franz Seywald's eldest son, who was also imprisoned at the age of 18:

"My father told me. ... From July 23 to 24, 1944, the light was on all night in one of the cells, and everyone knew that if the light was on, he was a death row prisoner. But he didn't know his father's cell and fell asleep. Early in the morning, they came for him two by two and forced him to watch as they hanged his father, accompanied by the words: 'Look here, this is what we do to traitors. ... One of the Nazis is said to have said: 'Another one less of the pigs. The prison chaplain himself also said at the time that they had killed him."

According to this, Franz Seywald was the victim of an arbitrary act by fanatical prison guards at the Salzburg remand prison. The "official" suicide version of death is intended to cover up this fact to this day.