Univ.-Prof. DDr. Erich Pakesch

Erich Pakesch was born the son of Franz Pakesch (originally Pakeš), who was the personnel director of Vienna's public transport company.

Erich Pakesch completed secondary school in Vienna and, after graduating from high school in 1935, began studying at the University of Vienna's Faculty of Medicine (Dr. med. 1941), where he joined the Franco-Bavaria student association. As a Catholic student, he made no secret of his opposition to National Socialism.

When the five medical students Friedrich Pakesch and Norbert Klech, both members of the Franco-Bavaria student association, René Grundmann and Friedrich Muschl, both members of the Rudolfina student association, and Walter Ruff, a member of the Amelungia student association, attended a medical lecture at the University of Vienna on Monday, November 28, 1938, word had already spread of their decidedly anti-regime behaviour. They were observed by the later SS-Hauptsturmführer Viktor Marounek, the later SS-Hauptsturmführer Wolfgang Rabe, the SA-Rottenführer Josef Lack and the SS men Ignaz Artner, Lothar Böhm, Ernst Zartl and Friedrich Völkl.

Viktor Marounek in a memorial protocol:

"I was informed by various party comrades that in Prof. Schürer's lecture, the CVers caused a public nuisance with their obstinate behaviour. Since it has been customary since the upheaval for the audience to stand up at the beginning of the lecture and return the professor's German salute, the former leading C.C. members believed they had to express their hatred of National Socialism by not making this salute, not standing up and expressing their disapproval of such new introductions with hand gestures. [

In fact, the university students Muschl, Pakesch, Ruff and Rene Grundmann, who behaved in the manner described, were sitting on the last bench. [...] After Prof. Schürer had finished his lecture with the German salute, the CVer Norbert Klech did the rest by putting on his hat during the salute and turning his back on the professor."

After the lecture, the five fellow students were confronted by the mob, beaten up and thrown down the stairs. After their names were recorded, they were suspended from the university and disciplinary proceedings were initiated. They were banned from entering the University of Vienna, which meant that they could no longer sit any examinations that semester.

On February 23, 1939, as part of the disciplinary proceedings, they were found guilty of "failing to give the German salute properly after Prof. Schürer [...] had finished his lecture. They were punished with an admonition and warning from the dean and were not given credit for the semester.

After completing his studies, Erich Pakesch moved to Graz in 1941 to avoid further persecution by the Nazi authorities. At the end of April 1941, he became an assistant at the Institute for Pathological Anatomy at the Medical Faculty of the University of Graz and was made indispensable by the German Wehrmacht.

In Graz, Erich Pakesch immediately came into contact with the illegal underground student fraternity Carolina and was already present at the underground student fraternity in the apartment of its chairman, Gerd Stepantschitz, on June 15, 1941. As a result, several admissions were made - including those of Gerald Grinschgl and Fritz Mankowski - so that Pakesch temporarily exercised the functions within the fraternity. In May 1943, the Carolina suburb is also reactivated and Grinschgl is appointed suburb president (VOP) after Alfred Hueber, a member of the Carolina student fraternity who had been elected VOP in 1937, is killed in action. Erich Pakesch also joins the Vorort.

As its representative, Erich Pakesch takes part in a university week at Whitsun 1944 on a farm above Innsbruck, which is partly organized by the student fraternity Alpinia Innsbruck, founded in 1940 and also operating illegally underground. He was presented with the application for admission, so that the student fraternity Alpinia Innsbruck was provisionally admitted to the ÖCV as a free association in July 1944. After the end of the war, a final local committee was set up at the beginning of October 1945, with Erich Pakesch being elected as the 1st local secretary. At the beginning of 1946, the activities of the Carolina suburb ended and with it Erich Pakesch's suburb charge.

In the meantime, Pakesch had changed subjects within medicine and became an assistant at the Psychiatric-Neurological Clinic at the University of Graz in April 1943. After 1945, he began a scientific career there. To this end, he later also studied psychology at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Graz (Dr. phil. 1959). In 1948, he spent six months studying in London. In 1953, he qualified as a professor of psychiatry and neurology in Graz.

In 1962, Erich Pakesch was awarded the title of associate university professor. In 1963, he was appointed senior physician at the Department of Psychiatry and Neurology. From 1964 to 1968, he was the supporting director of this clinic. Appointed Associate Professor in 1967, he was appointed Head of the Chair of Medical Psychology and Psychotherapy at the Medical Faculty of the University of Graz in 1969. He was appointed full professor in 1970. He died in Graz in 1979.