Markus Leyrer

Markus Leyrer was born the son of a farmer in Oberaich (and not Oberdorf, as is sometimes wrongly claimed). After school, he first worked on his parents' farm and later for the railroad. In 1914, he volunteered for the war, from which he returned home in 1918.

After the First World War, he briefly served in the gendarmerie, but in 1922 he transferred to the agricultural health insurance fund in Feldbach. There he worked his way up to the position of district registration office manager.

During the First World War, Markus Leyrer joined the Christian Social Workers' Association, later the trade union and the VF. He became district chairman for the white-collar section of the trade union. He and his wife Anna, whom he married in 1923, had four children together.

After the occupation of Austria by the Third Reich in March 1938, the opponent of National Socialism was forced into retirement and then worked as a day laborer on his brother's farm and as a magazine clerk.

At the end of 1939 or beginning of 1940, Markus Leyrer met with Wilhelm Hierländer and Emil Ertl, whom he already knew from the time before the invasion, to discuss a possible restoration of the House of Habsburg in Austria. During this meeting, they consider founding a legitimist organization, but this does not come to fruition.

In spring 1941, Eduard Pumpernig, who had learned of Leyrer's negative attitude towards National Socialism via a third party, announces his arrival in writing. Markus Leyrer informs the like-minded Moser, former mayor of Eisenerz, and Emil Ertl of this letter. At Easter 1941, the four of them meet in Markus Leyrer's apartment. Eduard Pumpernig informed them of the plans to found a legitimist resistance group, the Antifascist Freedom Movement of Austria (AFÖ). Leyrer, Moser and Ertl agree to found a cell of the group in Feldbach. Subsequently, a certain Mödlhammer and Alois Gingl from Feldbach also joined this cell, but were soon killed in the war. The Gestapo was later unable to prove that savings bank employee Josef Hermann was a member of this cell.

After this meeting, Eduard Pumpernig did not visit Feldbach again and did not report back, which is why there were no further activities by the Feldbach cell of the AFÖ.

On August 25, 1943, Markus Leyrer was arrested by the Gestapo and sentenced to two years in prison by the People's Court on April 22, 1944 for preparation for high treason. He remained in prison until the end of the war.