Emmerich Hermann Brunner (geb. Brundik)

Emmerich Brundik was born in Baden near Vienna, the legitimate son of police inspector Eduard Brunner and Johanna, née Ringhofer. In 1920, when Emmerich Brundik was 11 years old, the family changed their name from Brundik to Brunner. After five years of elementary school and three years of secondary school, he attended a three-year college for druggists, which he completed with distinction. He then completed a commercial training school. His father died in 1926.

At the age of 21, he married Johanna Elisabeth Sophie Noppet from Graz, moved to Switzerland and left the Catholic Church. A year later, his daughter was born and Emmerich Brunner rejoined the Catholic Church. His son was born in 1932.

In 1933, Emmerich Brunner moved with his family to Rio de Janeiro to take up work with IG Farben "Barzer-Meister-Licius". However, after his wife and daughter's health suffered from the subtropical weather, the family returned to Vienna at the end of 1937 and Emmerich Brunner became an art dealer.

Emmerich Brunner was a fierce opponent of National Socialism and a staunch Austrian. He made no secret of his opinion in the days from January to March 1938. After the occupation of Austria by the German Wehrmacht, he was interrogated several times by the Gestapo at Morzinplatz in Vienna's 1st district.

After Emmerich Brunner once again criticized the regime, he was assigned to a punishment company as a corporal and transferred to occupied Croatia in the winter of 1942. There he was assigned to a group tasked with hunting down partisans.

On September 7, 1943, he was captured by the partisans. They locked him in a wooden hut until September 27, 1943. He was thoroughly examined by an English liaison officer and was able to credibly demonstrate his opposition to National Socialism. He joins the partisans and takes over the management of the central pharmacy of the VI Corps of the partisan army.

The Wehrmacht tries to get hold of him three times, but only manages to burn down the central pharmacy. He also survived various bombings by the Luftwaffe.

On April 27, 1945, he witnessed the re-establishment of the Second Republic in Yugoslavia and the unconditional surrender of the Third Reich on May 8, 1945. On the day of the capitulation, he took over the management of the Volksapotheke in Esseg [today: Osijek in Croatia] and in the fall he became an export officer at the company 'Jugolek'.

After the political situation in Yugoslavia deteriorated noticeably, Emmerich Brunner returned to Austria in the fall of 1947. There he finds that an apartment is occupied by someone else, his daughter Eva and his mother have died in 1943 and his wife in 1944. Only his son is still alive.

He finds employment at the Federal Ministry of the Interior and joins the ÖVP-Kameradschaft der politisch Verfolgten und Bekenner für Österreich