Dr. Paul Schmittner

After graduating from high school, Paul Schmittner joined the gendarmerie from 1924 to 1926 and completed the Officers' Academy. During this time, he studied law part-time at the University of Vienna, where he also obtained his doctorate in law. In 1930, he became active in the Rudolfina student fraternity. He later joined the gendarmerie in Krems/Danube, where the illegal regional leadership of the NSDAP was based.

Paul Schmittner was arrested and imprisoned as a gendarmerie major and department commander in Krems/Danube immediately after the Anschluss on March 13, 1938. He was one of the prisoners transferred to Dachau concentration camp on April 1, 1938 [Gestapo list: 131] on the so-called 'Prominent Transport'. From there, he was transferred to Flossenbürg concentration camp on September 27, 1939; on March 2, 1940, he was transferred back to Dachau concentration camp, from where he was released on April 20, 1940. He was relieved of his post and retired with 50 percent of his pension.

Fearing another arrest, he fled to relatives in Tyrol after the assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler on July 20, 1944. From November 1944, he had contact with resistance groups there and set up an organization. On May 3, 1945, the NSDAP in Ginzling is dissolved and all documents and weapons are confiscated. In addition, "returnees" had to be provided for, and Wehrmacht and SS soldiers passing through were disarmed. A force of 38 men is set up to prevent armed units from entering the Zillertal. On May 8, 1945, the day of the capitulation, a mayor and a provisional municipal council are appointed.

Paul Schmittner rejoins the gendarmerie and is appointed provincial gendarmerie commander of Burgenland in 1945. He retired as a police officer and died at the age of 87. He finds his final resting place at the cemetery in Vienna-Rodaun.