Hans Georg Heintschel von Heinegg
Personalia
Born:
Died:
Profession:
Memberships
Curriculum Vitae
Hanns Georg Heintschel von Heinegg was born in Groß Knieschitz in Bohemia [today: Kněžice in the Czech Republic] as the legitimate son of wool goods manufacturer Wolfgang Heintschel von Heinegg and Berta, née Hallama. The Kneschitz Castle in the Bohemian Forest, where he was born and lived with his three sisters, had been purchased by the family in 1897, renovated and moved there from Vienna in 1906.
In 1926, his parents had to sell the estate and castle due to excessive debt and moved back to Vienna. There he attended elementary school and from 1928 the Theresianum in Vienna, where he graduated in 1937. He then entered the Jesuit seminary, the Canisianum in Innsbruck.
On March 12, 1938, the devout Catholic and staunch Austrian witnessed the demise of a free and independent Austria with the invasion of the German Wehrmacht. In November 1938, the seminary was closed by the anti-clerical National Socialists and Hanns Georg Heintschel von Heinegg was forced to leave the seminary and abandon his theological studies. Even at this time, he was already promoting his ideals of freedom and human dignity among his circle of friends. Hanns Georg Heintschel von Heinegg moved back to Vienna in June 1939 and found work in the Statistical Office in anticipation of his call-up to the Wehrmacht.
Together with his former classmate from the Theresianum, Gerhard Fischer von Ledenice, he joins the Austrian Freedom Movement around the Augustinian canon Roman Karl Scholz, whom he met in Vienna.
Perhaps it is necessary that the hand of God touches us very hard.
In the Austrian Freedom Movement, Hanns Georg Heintschel von Heinegg soon assumed leading positions within the movement. In 1940, Roman Karl Scholz succeeded in joining the Austrian Freedom Movement around Karl Lederer and the Großösterreichische Freiheitsbewegung around Jakob Kastelic.
From July 1940, a good 300 people from these resistance groups were betrayed by the castle actor Otto Hartmann (Otto Hartmann was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment in 1947 and pardoned in 1957) and Hanns Georg Heintschel von Heinegg was arrested on July 23, 1940. In July 1941, he was transferred from Vienna to the prison in Anrath on the Dutch border, in November 1941 to Krefeld, where he was held in a cell until the beginning of March 1943, before returning to Anrath and being transferred back to Vienna in the fall of 1943. In prison, he was banned from writing.
In a trial before the People's Court, he was sentenced to death on February 23, 1944 for "preparation for high treason".
We all have to prove ourselves first. Here we only gather... Only the one who waits matures, and every purification requires the stone that is thrown at us.
I am ready to die - and live. Greetings to all the faithful. May all pray. God is very merciful. Suffering is also a grace, because it comes from love and leads to love. God bless you!
Sincerely, Your Hanns Georg
Hanns Georg Heintschel von Heinegg from death row
On death row, he motivates a young communist to make a holy confession. [Note: Probably shortly before his execution.]
Then I became a pastor for the first and last time.
Hanns Georg Heintschel von Heinegg is executed by guillotine on December 5, 1944 at 6:31 pm in the Vienna Provincial Court. His body was then buried anonymously in Group 40 at Vienna's Central Cemetery.
Citations
Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstands (DÖW)
Erzdiözese Wien unter www.erzdioezese-wien.at/unit/offenekirche/hoffnungspilgern/hoffnungszeugen/hannsgeorgheintschel
Kulturstiftung der deutschen Vertriebenen unter kulturstiftung.org/biographien/heintschel-heinegg-hanns-georg
