Dr. Hans Pernter

After graduating from grammar school in Vienna in 19, Hans Pernter studied physics and geography at the University of Vienna, where he received his doctorate in 1911. In 1905 he was accepted into the Norica student fraternity. During the time of the "academic culture war", he put all his energy into supporting Catholic students. In 1908, he co-founded the Marco-Danubia student fraternity in Vienna. He was appointed the first chairman of the "Studentenunterstützungsverein Akademikerhilfe" (Student Support Association for Academics), founded on 21 November 1921, until 1933.

After his time as a university assistant, his professional career initially took him to the Ministry of Labor (Hydrographic Central Office). He was then transferred to the Ministry of Education, where he began as Secretary to the Minister and rose to become Presidential Director and Head of Section. From 1932 to 1934, he headed the Arts Section and was responsible for the federal theaters. He was appointed State Secretary in 1934 and Federal Minister for Education in 1936.

After the Anschluss, Hans Pernter was arrested on March 15, 1938 as a member of Kurt von Schuschnigg's last cabinet and sent to Dachau concentration camp on June 24, 1938, transferred to Flossenbürg in the autumn of 1939 and returned to Dachau in the spring of 1940. He was released there in October 1940. After his release, he worked in a tax consultant's office. He took over the chairmanship of resistance group 05, in which Felix Hurdes and Lois Weinberger also worked. However, when his son fell in Russia in 1943, he withdrew.

On October 7, 1944, he was arrested again after the failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler on July 20 and recorded by the Gestapo in Vienna for identification purposes. He was saved from the People's Court by contracting typhus. He remained in custody until the liberation of Vienna by the Red Army on April 6, 1945.