Dr. Martin Anton Groder

Martin Anton Groder is born as the son of a small farmer, only comes in the 15th Year of life for studying at the Borromäum High School in Salzburg. In 1916 he moved to the I. Tiroler Kaiserjäger-Regiment and then returns to the 7th class.

He then studies law and holds a doctorate in 1926. In 1920 he joined the student association Austria Innsbruck. Martin Anton Groder becomes a journalist. There is hardly a topic to which he does not take a critical position in his self-willing style. He stays long without employment.

In 1933 he is appointed by the VF to Vienna and is a 1937 editor at the “Telegraph”. In 1938 he emigrated to Switzerland. His “Roman der Mutter” (“Roman der Mutter”), which appears in 1940, is not successful, his work permit is not extended, and so he returns “home to the Reich” in August 1941.

At the border the Gestapo receives him; it is highly suspected, because many thousands of VF membership cards bear its distinctive signature. After weeks of interrogation in the police prison in Innsbruck and the Bregenz regional court, he is finally released and immediately moved to the customs border protection.

After the war, Martin Anton Groder will be elected to the Tyrolean Country Day in 1945 and will be head of the Office for Culture and Science as well as Chairman of the Radio Advisory Council and the Theatre Committee.