Erwin Altenburger

Erwin Altenburger came from a small family in Upper Styria, completed primary and secondary school (Hauptschule) and learned the trade of shoemaking. Even as an apprentice, he was influenced by Catholic social teaching and co-founded an apprentice organization in Leoben in 1918. After his journeyman's examination, he became involved in the Catholic Journeymen's Association and the Reich Federation of Catholic Youth.

From 1923, he became involved in the Christian Trade Union, becoming one of the leading functionaries of the Christian Trade Union Youth and later Central Secretary of the Union of Christian Textile Workers.

In March 1938, Altenburger was arrested and charged by the SS, but was acquitted and released in July 1938. He then worked in various professions as a "person unworthy of military service". He subsequently became a member of the resistance circle around Lois Weinberger.

After the war, Altenburger immediately returned to political and trade union activities. He was involved in the founding of the Austrian Workers' and Employees' Federation (ÖAAB) - later becoming its Federal Chairman. In the summer of 1945, he became one of the secretaries of the federal leadership of the newly founded Austrian Trade Union Federation (ÖGB). From 1946, he was Vice President of the ÖGB for almost 30 years. He was also a member of the National Council and briefly a federal minister without portfolio in the 1940s. From 1951, Erwin Altenburger was the first federal chairman of the Christian Trade Unionists parliamentary group.