Dr. Johann Josef Holkup

Johann Josef Holkup was born in Vienna as the legitimate son of the piano cleaner Josef Holkup and his wife Therese, née Kasáčik. Although his parents, who later came from Czechoslovakia, were Austrian citizens like Johann Holkup, they raised him in the Czech way. He attended the Czech elementary school in Vienna and then the Czech secondary school, where he graduated in 1936. After graduating from high school, he enrolled in medicine at the University of Vienna. In Vienna, he joins the Czech Academic Association.

On March 12, 1938, Johann Holkup witnesses the demise of free and independent Austria with the invasion of the German Wehrmacht. In May 1938, he was asked by the Czech student Emmerich Crhak, whom he knew from school and the Czech academic association, to travel to Hainburg in Lower Austria to find out whether there were any German troops there. He travels to Hainburg, discovers that there are no troops there yet and informs Emmerich Crhak of this. He repeated the trip again in May.

On May 7, 1938, he traveled to Brün [today: Brno] with the student Emil Bartak, who, like Emmerich Crhak, worked for the Czech secret service, to meet with members of the Czech secret service.