Dr. Karl Maria Stepan

Karl Maria Stepan visits the gymnasiums in Vienna-Meidling, Wiener Neustadt and Mödling, where he maturates. He then began studying law in Vienna and joined the student association in 1913 Norica .

At the beginning of the First World War, he volunteered to military in August 1914. After the end of the one-year volunteer year, he comes to the Russian front as a sign of the reserve. Here he arrives at Dubno (Ukraine) in Russian prisoners of war in 1915 and spends almost five years in Siberia in a camp in Sterjetensk (east of Lake Baikal). In the turmoil of the Russian revolution, the first attempt to escape does not succeed, followed by an internation in Moscow. The second attempt to escape succeed, Karl Maria Stepan comes back to Vienna at the end of July 1920 via Leningrad.

A serious illness and the loss of savings seem to exclude a continuation of the study. P. Wilhelm Schmidt SVD († 1954) and o. Univ.-Prof. P. Dr. Nivard Schlögl OCist. († 1939) but allow him to continue the Jus study. He changes to Graz in the autumn of 1921, where he becomes the student association Carolina followed and received his doctorate in 1924.

After court practice, Karl Maria Stepan enters the law firm Dr. Rudolf Trummer. 1924–1928 he is Secretary General of the Christian Social Party in Styria. In 1928, he joined the "Anstalten des Katholischen Pressvereins in der Diözese Seckau" [later Druck- und Verlagshaus Styria and Styria Medien AG], will become its director or director after a few months 1929–1934 Director-General.

In 1932 Karl Maria Stepan emerges from the CSP and in May 1933 Federal Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuß informs about the political activities of Rintelen. At the request of the Federal Chancellor, Karl Maria Stepan is the Federal Head of the VF until October 1934 and is decisively involved in its expansion and expansion. He then resigns on the basis of personal tensions with Kurt von Schuschnigg and is appointed to the state captain in Styria on 13.10.1934;on 2.11.1934 he shall be appointed. He goes rigorously against the National Socialists.

After a visit to the Federal Minister of Internal Administration and Security, appointed in February 1938, Dr. Arthur Seyß-Inquart († 1946), in Graz, Karl Maria Stepan must return to the Catholic Press Association on 3.3.1938.

On March 12th, 1938, he was arrested at 3:00 a.m. and came to the police prison in Graz. His wife is forced to sell the house of the seven-headed family to the Fiskus. On 25.5.1938, he is transferred to the detention centre in the prison of the Landesgericht für Strafsachen in Graz. In order to criminalize him, like other political prisoners, a preliminary investigation is initiated for the suspicion of theft and the misconception. Karl Maria Stepan also fails this. On 1.12.1938, after proven innocence, the preliminary investigation and the return to the police prison take place.

Because of his poor health condition, he is brought to hospital care, but the erged release does not take place due to a protective arrest warrant issued by Berlin on 5.4.1939. On 22.4.1939, the transfer to KZ Dachau, where shortly after his arrival he must spend 92 days in solitary and partial dark in the “Commandanturarrest” (“Bunker”). On 27.9.1939 he will be KZ Mauthausen where he first works in the quarry, then as an iron-bending machine in the construction command and finally works in the epidemic area from December 1939 to April 1940, where he cultivates among other Adolf Hörhager, Ferdinand Habel and his friend Hermann Lein. In processes after 1945 he testifies “kills almost at any time and at any place” in KZ Mauthausen.

After a denunciation by fellow prisoners who have feared to be displayed because of their illegal trading with gold teeth, Karl Maria Stepan arrives on 19.4.1940 in the auxiliary camp Gusen I, where he performs excavation work. At this time, Father Johann Gruber is a nurse in the prison district from 20.8.1940. Karl Maria Stepan stands out for special harassments and is released from the concentration camp on 2.10.1940.

After unsuccessful search for a job in the “Altreich” a work ban is issued and Karl Maria Stepan is instructed not to leave Groß-Graz. From 1.12.1943 he works as a magazine worker and warehouse owner in the arized leather shop of an SS-Obersturmbannguide. After the unfortunate assassination of July 20, 1944 – like many other well-known regiments – he was arrested again on August 23, 1944 and with the detention ground “repealable” in September 1944 KZ Flossenbürg (“a real hell”) delivered. From there, on 4.11.1944 KZ Dachau where the U.S. Army liberates him on 29.4.1945. He has to stay here until 24.5. Then he breaks out of the camp quarantine and goes to his children in Weißenbach an der Enns (Stmk).

As in the First World War, Karl Maria Stepan also spent three and a half years behind barbed wire under the NS terror. Not without compromising the fact that he is not called back into politics, he returns to the Catholic Press Association of the Diocese of Seckau on 1.10.1945 as a public administrator, the Director-General of which he will be back until 1968. He doesn't take any more political offices.