Hofrat Dr. Meinrad Rohracher

Meinrad Rohracher was born as one of seven children to Franz Rohracher, an antiquarian bookseller and former member of the Reichstag and mayor of Lienz. One of his brothers was the future Archbishop of Salzburg, Andreas Rohracher.

He attended elementary school in Lienz and later grammar school in Brixen, where he graduated and began studying law in Innsbruck. In 1915, he interrupted his studies to take part in the First World War in the 2nd Tyrolean Imperial Regiment. In 1918 he was mustered out as an ensign and resumed his studies, graduating in 1921. He married in the same year. This marriage resulted in two children. After his court clerkship, he joined the Carinthian provincial civil service and eventually worked as a deputy district governor in Hermagor and Spittal.

He became involved in the Patriotic Front and was actively involved in defeating the attempted coup by the National Socialists in July 1934. In August 1934, he was injured by a National Socialist and an explosive device and two firecrackers were placed in front of his apartment.

On the night of the invasion of the German Wehrmacht, Meinrad Rohracher was arrested and transferred to the provincial court in Klagenfurt. There, on May 31, 1938, he was sentenced to three months in prison for "abuse of official authority". After his health deteriorated drastically in prison, he was released in September 1938. He was banned from the Gau and had to leave Carinthia within 24 hours.

He moved to Vienna and worked various jobs to support his wife and two children. Meinrad Rohracher moved to Vienna towards the end of 1941 and was invited by his former schoolmate Karl Wanner to join the Lamberti-Runde at the inn of Franz Lambert [today: Pürstner]. The group had joined the Antifascist Freedom Movement of Austria (AFÖ) around the pastor Anton Granig. Karl Wanner became aware of them through leaflets, which stated, among other things:

In March 1942, Meinrad Rohracher met the leader of the AFÖ, Anton Granig, whom he had known since 1938, in person. Through him, the AFÖ also established indirect contact with his brother, Andreas Rohracher, who became Archbishop of Salzburg in 1943.

After Austria's liberation in May 1945, he was immediately reinstated into the state civil service, first as district governor of Klagenfurt and later as head of the Carinthian citizenship department. In 1947 he transferred to the federal service and became administrative director of the State Archives. He retired in 1959 and died in Vienna in 1962.