Dr. Johann Dorrek

Johann Dorrek, who originally wanted to become a priest, attended the boys' seminary in Hollabrunn after elementary school with the School Brothers in Vienna IV. For health reasons, he then continued his education at the Amerling-Gymnasium in Vienna.

In 1928, he joined the secondary school fraternity Rhenania Wien. After graduating from high school in 1931, he enrolled at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Vienna and became a member of the student fraternity Bajuvaria in 1931. After a year, he began studying law as a working student at the Austrian Tobacco Directorate.

After the Anschluss, he was arrested by the Gestapo on March 14, 1938 as a well-known Catholic youth functionary and "passionate fighter for a free, independent Austria" and detained until June 30, 1938. After the Rosary Festival on October 7, 1938, a manhunt was launched for him. He evaded arrest by "traveling" and was thus able to continue his studies, which he completed on 21.12.1938 with a doctorate in law. He is then drafted into military service. On the basis of a medical certificate issued by his fraternity brother Dr. Richard Galler, he is sent home fit for garrison duty.

As a clerk at the court martial, he takes part in the "Widerstandsgruppe Meithner" at the Hochschule für Welthandel in Vienna, whose leader, who is also his fraternity brother at the Mittelschulverbindung Rhenania, Dr. Gustav Ziegler, is later executed. Johann Dorrek was then transferred to Greece, where he made contact with the ELAS and EAM partisan organizations in 1944.

In Salonika, he deserted to the British. He was interned in Cairo and later employed at the Intelligence Service headquarters in Rome to compile lists of resistance fighters and leading National Socialists and as a radio announcer.

In August 1945, he was released to Vienna. Here he learns that the Russians have shot his mother.

After the war, Johann Dorrek gets a job at the Federal Ministry of Finance. After the 1945 National Council elections, Federal Chancellor Leopold Figl appoints him as his secretary.

In 1947, he marries Figl's youngest sister Maria and becomes his brother-in-law.