Polizeioberstleutnant Alois Josef Ecker

Personalia

Born:

May 27, 1899, Vienna

Died:

February 18, 1944, Maintenon, France

Profession:

Civil servant

Persecution:

Imprisonment March 15, 1938 – May 24, 1938,
Dachau Concentration Camp May 24, 1938 – September 20, 1938,
Release January 31, 1939

Curriculum Vitae

Alois Josef Ecker was born in Vienna to Josef Ecker, a valet, and Anna, née Thurner. In Vienna, he attended elementary school and then high school, where he graduated in 1917. That same year, he was drafted into World War I and returned home at the end of November 1918. After serving three weeks with the Vienna City Guard, he was transferred to the Vienna State Police Department on October 31, 1919. In 1923, he married Anna Sperl.

In 1934, Alois Ecker was promoted to police staff sergeant. As a staunch Austrian and opponent of National Socialism, he conducted training sessions and gave lectures against National Socialism and took decisive action against illegal National Socialists within the Vienna police force.

[…]
Ecker made particular enemies within the police force because of his unequivocal and forceful stance against the NSDAP, his pro-Austrian propaganda among his fellow officers, and, in particular, his sharp criticism of the illegal police members of Standard 89.
[…]

Statement by the Austrian Federal Chancellery dated November 29, 1947

On March 12, 1938, Alois Ecker witnessed the downfall of free and independent Austria with the invasion of the German Wehrmacht. As early as March 15, 1938, he was arrested by the Gestapo and deported to the Dachau concentration camp on the second transport from Vienna on May 24, 1938.

Following the intervention of his wife, Anna Ecker, he was discharged from that unit on September 20, 1938. He was suspended from duty and discharged via compulsory retirement on January 31, 1939. He subsequently found employment at the “Ostmark Versicherungs-Anstalt.” [Note: The Ostmark Versicherungs-Anstalt was called Bundesländerversicherung before 1938 and after 1945, and has been known as UNIQA since 1999.]

However, Alois Ecker’s enemies within the Vienna NSDAP would not leave him alone. Although he suffered from heart disease and rheumatoid arthritis, he was repeatedly summoned to appear before the medical examination board. At every medical examination, a Gestapo official was present who tried to pressure the board into declaring him fit for service. Finally, on April 28, 1943, the examining physicians gave in, and Alois Ecker was drafted into the Wehrmacht as a lance corporal, even though he was an officer. At the insistence of the Gestapo, he was assigned to a mine-clearing unit in France.

[…]
As a final blow, the Vienna Gestapo transferred Ecker to a bomb disposal unit to guard particularly dangerous shipments of explosives, with the intention of eliminating him. The Vienna circles made this intention so openly known that Ecker’s superiors from the German Reich expressed their outrage to him. Ecker told me about this during a leave of absence and explained to me that they would still “hunt him down.”

Statement by the Austrian Federal Chancellery dated November 29, 1947

Alois Ecker ultimately died on February 18, 1944, in Maintenon, west of Paris, during an explosion while on duty.

After Austria’s liberation, his wife, Anna Ecker, joined the newly founded Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and the ÖVP Association of the Politically Persecuted and Defenders of Austria. She succeeded in having Alois Ecker posthumously promoted to police lieutenant colonel, which was also relevant for the calculation of his pension. She died childless 44 years after her husband.

Skip map