DDr. Alois Lugger

Alois Lugger was born the son of a gendarme. The family came from the pilgrimage town of Maria Luggau in the Carinthian-Tyrolean border region and, following the death of his mother in 1919, moved to Kufstein, where Alois Lugger attended elementary school and the Realgymnasium. There, he was accepted into the Cimbria secondary school fraternity. After graduating from high school in 1931, he began his studies at the Faculty of Law and Political Science at the University of Innsbruck (Dr. iur. in 1935, Dr. rer. pol. in 1936) and joined the Austria Innsbruck student fraternity there.

After completing his judicial clerkship at the Innsbruck Regional Court, Alois Lugger entered the service of the Tyrolean provincial government in 1936 and became secretary to Governor Josef Schumacher. Following the Anschluss in March 1938, he was dismissed from his position as a provincial employee and barred from working in the Gau Tyrol and subsequently throughout the entire “Ostmark.” Consequently, he worked first as a commercial lawyer in Vienna and then in Berlin (as a legal advisor at AEG). In 1940, he was drafted into the German Wehrmacht (anti-aircraft artillery) and returned home having been wounded several times (his final rank was First Lieutenant in the Reserve).

Following the liberation of Austria and the restoration of the Republic in April and May 1945, respectively, Alois Lugger began his political career and joined the newly founded Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and the Austrian Workers’ Union (ÖAAB). In 1949, he became a member of the Tyrolean State Parliament and later served as its president. In addition, he served as mayor of the city of Innsbruck from 1956 to 1983. In 1959, he was admitted to the Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem (OESSH).

Alois Lugger died at the age of 93 in Rum, Tyrol.