Dr. Josef Heinrich Sommer

Josef Heinrich Sommer attended the Jesuit grammar school in Mariaschein [Bohosudov]/North Bohemia and studied at the Faculty of Law and Political Science at the German University of Prague after graduating in 1907. He became a member of the Saxo-Bavaria student fraternity in Prague in 1907. He completed his studies in 1913 with a doctorate (Dr. iuris). After completing his court clerkship at the regional court in Linz, he became a trainee in the governor's office in Upper Austria in 1914. Adolf Hitler's escape from Austria to Germany in 1913 in order to avoid compulsory military service is one of his most famous acts during this time - this case would later prove to be his undoing.

From 16 January 1915 to October 1918, he took part in the First World War as a one-year volunteer with Field Howitzer Regiment No. 3, ultimately with the rank of Lieutenant d. R., He took part in the First World War and was transferred to the Upper Austrian provincial administration in 1918.

In 1922, he was commissioned to found the Upper Austrian agricultural health insurance fund, which he managed until 1927. He then returned to the provincial service. He was also politically active: he was chairman of the CSP in Urfahr, a member of the Linz municipal council from 1923-1934 and Gauobmann of the Christian-German gymnastics clubs from 1924-1930. On 4 February 1928, he was one of the co-founders of the Welfia Linz secondary school fraternity.

On 12 March 1938, Adolf Hitler ordered August Eigruber, Gauleiter of Upper Austria, to search the Landhaus Chancellery for Adolf Hitler's military record, which included his escape from the army and expatriation. At the end of the research, it turns out that the file does indeed exist, but was "dug up by an unknown person". In the course of these investigations, the former provincial governor Josef Schlegel, his presidential chief Josef Heinrich Sommer and the Christian-Socialist club chairman and provincial councillor Josef Pfeneberger (CSP) were arrested and interrogated.

After the first arrest and interrogation [because of the Hitler files], Josef Heinrich Sommer was imprisoned again and dismissed from public service on October 14, 1938 without pension entitlements and banned from the Gau. Josef Heinrich Sommer was then able to go into hiding in Vienna, where he worked from July 1938 under a false name as an employee of the freight forwarding company Dr. August Serrat