Hofrat DI Franz Strobl

After the Matura in 1915 at the Benediktiner-Gymnasium in Raab [Györ], Franz Strobl is moved to the military and is serving his military service in 1915-1919. After the war, he studies forestry at the Schemnitz Mountain and Forest Academy [Selmecbanya], which he concludes with the graduation to the Dipl.-Ing. In 1927 he will be admitted to the Burgenland Regional Service.

He also acts politically: 1927–1934 as a councillor in Eisenstadt and 1934–1938 as a member of the Burgenland government. In 1933 he took over the task of the provisional leader of the VF and became district leader of Eisenstadt.

He was arrested on 12.3.1938 and sent to the Eisenstadt District Court. Here Franz Strobl reports:

“We were then relocated from the offices to the Landtage Committee Room, where we were guarded by armed SA men. All night, many officials and officials of the fatherland front were already included as prisoners of armed SA people. ... We prisoners in the district court were interrogated by German Gestapo people. These interrogations did not serve the purpose of accusing us of anything, but rather of extorting burdensome confessions and possibly also statements about actions of others. Significant for the confiscation was that at the desk of the Gestapo-Beamt not only an oxenziemer, but also pistol and rubber billets, in other cases dog whips, were available. Of course, it was not possible to secure the success of the interrogations with fist strikes. ‘

From Eisenstadt he will later be over Vienna with one of the first transports to the KZ Buchenwald where he is detained for several months. It is then compulsory boarded with heavily reduced covers. After the failed assassination on Adolf Hitler on 20.7.1944 he is arrested again.

After the war, he was a member of the National Council in 1945–1962.