Regierungsrat Franz Pernauer

Franz Pernauer was born the legitimate son of Franz Pernauer, a winegrower of the same name, and Theresia, née Jäger. After elementary school and lower school, he attended the teacher training college and became a secondary school teacher in Krems.

In the 1930s, the Austrian patriot became involved in the Vaterländische Front and rose to become a district leader. He was also the regional leader of the Austrian Young People, Austria's state youth organization at the time. In his functions, Franz Pernauer took a firm stand against the National Socialists. Illegal

Despite his resolute fight against National Socialism and for a free and independent Austria, Franz Pernauer had to experience how the German Wehrmacht occupied Austria on the night of March 11 to March 12, 1938. He was arrested for a day that same night. He was arrested again from March 18, 1938 to March 23, 1938, and arrested a third time on July 25, 1938. On September 25, 1938, he was finally deported from prison to the Buchenwald concentration camp. On January 3, 1939, Franz Pernauer was dismissed as a secondary school teacher. On January 28, 1939, he was transferred from the concentration camp to the Vienna police prison, where he was released on January 31, 1939.

Franz Pernauer moved to Vienna after his release. He was conscripted into the Wehrmacht in July 1941, but was invalided out on January 22, 1942 under pressure from the NSDAP as 'unacceptable'. Shortly before, on 22 December 1941, he married Ernestine Aloisia Dreher.

In Lower Austria, which had been liberated from the Nazi occupiers, Franz Pernauer was rehabilitated in April 1945 and entrusted with the reorganization of the Lower Austrian school system. He became district school inspector in Krems and joined the newly founded Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) and later the ÖVP-Kameradschaft der politisch Verfolgten und Bekenner für Österreich.

In the district of Krems, Franz Pernauer establishes the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), becomes district chairman of the Austrian Workers' and Employees' Federation (ÖAAB) and is a member of the provincial executive committee between 1946 and 1974. In 1962, he was elected district party chairman of the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) in Krems. He held this position until 1974.

In 1972, Franz Pernauer became Chairman of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp Association, in 1973 Deputy Chairman of the ÖVP Comradeship of the Politically Persecuted and Confessors for Austria - Provincial Organization of Lower Austria and finally, on 14 January 1975, Federal Chairman of the Austrian People's Party. In addition, he became a member of the board of the Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstands (DÖW). He remained in these functions until his death in January 1986.