Hofrat Dr. Hermes Massimo

Hermes Massimo attended high school in Hall, Tyrol. As an uncompromising opponent of National Socialism, he was active in the resistance.

When German troops marched in, he was actively involved in the fighting in Wörgl, Tyrol. At the outbreak of World War II, he was drafted into the German Wehrmacht. There, too, he made no secret of his Austrian loyalties and was consequently sentenced in 1941 by a court-martial to four years’ imprisonment for undermining military morale. After serving half a year of his sentence, he was transferred to a penal battalion. Following frontline deployments in Norway and Russia, he returned home severely wounded. Until the end of the war, he remained an active member of the Austrian resistance movement in Tyrol, where he also established contact with the Austria Fraternity in Innsbruck.

After a prolonged stay in a military hospital, Hermes Massimo studied philosophy at the University of Innsbruck. In 1948, he earned his Dr. phil. degree with his dissertation “The Concept of Risk in Søren Kierkegaard” and subsequently worked as a librarian at the Austrian Patent Office.