Dkfm. Otto Burtscher

Otto Burtscher comes from the Ludi family from Großwalsertal. He grew up in Höchst/Vbg. His education took him to the Innsbruck Commercial Academy. Here he became a member of the secondary school fraternity Rhaetia Innsbruck in 1929.

He then went to Vienna in 1931 after graduating from high school and enrolled at the University of World Trade. There he became a member of the secondary school fraternity Austro-Bavaria. In 1935, he was one of the founding members of the FV Bernardia Stams. During his studies, he works in Vienna as an employee in an oriental carpet import business and for 2 1/2 years at the Tyrolean textile company Jenny

In the following months, he witnesses the increasing harassment of Jewish citizens, who now have to wear a Jewish star. In the summer of 1940, he was drafted into military service and deployed to the Western and Eastern fronts. During a study leave, he joins the resistance group Groß-Österreichische Freiheitsbewegung around Jacob Kastelic and Roman Scholz. As a result of betrayal by the castle actor Otto Hartmann, Burtscher is arrested on October 26, 1940 and is remanded in custody for 2 1/2 years, spending the first 6 months in solitary confinement in the Vienna military court. The trial ends without a verdict. After his release on March 29, 1943, he was drafted back into military service until the end of the war.