Dr. Dr. h. c. Alfons Gorbach
Personalia
Born:
Died:
Profession:
Persecution:
Imprisonment 13.03.1938 - 01.04.1938,
Dachau concentration camp 01.04.1938 - 27.09.1939,
Flossenbürg concentration camp 27.09.1939 - 02.03.1940,
Dachau concentration camp 02.03.1940 - 12.11.1942,
Imprisonment August 1944 - 04.11.1944,
Flossenbürg concentration camp 04.11.1944 - 20.04.1945,
Dachau concentration camp 20.04.1944 - 29.04.1945 (liberation of the camp)
KZ Number:
Honors:
Officer's Cross of the Austrian Order of Merit
Grand Decoration of Honor in Gold with the Star for Services to the Republic of Austria
Grand Decoration of Honor in Gold with Ribbon for services to the Republic of Austria
Honorary chairman of the ÖVP for life
Ring of Honor of the Province of Styria
Memberships
Curriculum Vitae
Born in Tyrol, Alfons Gorbach is a pupil at the prince-bishop's boys' seminary in Graz. His parents wanted him to become a priest. As a high school student, he enlisted in Carinthian Infantry Regiment No. 7 in 1916, became an officer and lost his right leg in the 12th Battle of the Isonzo. In 1917, he was highly decorated and discharged as an invalid, took his A-levels and studied law at the University of Graz.
In 1919, he joined the student fraternity Carolina. In 1920, he was one of the founders of the Graz CV fraternity Babenberg. After graduating as Dr. iuris in 1922, he began his year in court. He then worked at the Invalidity Compensation Commission for Styria
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Alfons Gorbach was already politically active as a student with the Christian Socials and in 1933 with the Vaterländische Front, where he became Styrian provincial chairman. In 1937, the National Socialists carried out a bomb attack on him. On 27 February 1938, he was still able to organize a major rally for a free and independent Austria in Graz.
After the invasion of the German Wehrmacht on 12 March 1938, Alfons Gorbach was arrested on 16 March 1938 and was sent to Dachau concentration camp on the first transport, the so-called 'Prominententransport', on 1 April 1938. Here he met Karl M. Stepan and Colonel Franz Zelburg (1883-1950), among others. Alfons Gorbach is unable to attend the now legendary 'Festsalamander' organized by Alfred Maleta in the concentration camp canteen to mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Carolina because he is imprisoned in the so-called
In the meantime, he was transferred to the Flossenbürg concentration camp from September 27, 1939 to March 2, 1940. After his return to Dachau, he was released on November 12, 1942. He then worked as a welder in a factory in Graz until he was arrested again in August 1944 after the July 20 assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler during the 'Aktion Gitter'. He was first transferred to the Flossenbürg concentration camp on November 4, 1944 and from there to the Dachau concentration camp on April 20, 1945, where he was liberated by the Americans on April 29, 1945.
For days, the camp had been infested with the sweet smell of corpses; 2,800 unburied bodies lay in piles in front of the crematorium. A funeral procession of 800 Jewish prisoner invalids, all but 24 of whom had died in the last few days for lack of food, stood on the industrial track in front of the wire hut. A longing rose up to heaven: "Lord, deliver us!"
But no longer far away across the paths of the mercifully opened sky rolled the volleys of American artillery. A thought lived in our minds: What will happen to us? Our worries were confirmed with grim justification. At the last hour, Himmler had received a secret order with the following wording: 'Since the inmates of the Buchenwald camp behaved cruelly towards the population of Weimar after their liberation, the order is issued that no inmate is to be allowed to fall into the hands of the enemy alive. Those able to march are to be evacuated immediately'. The net with which the camp command surrounded itself was no longer as tight as it once was. Soon everyone knew what the ruler of the SS had in mind for us. There were still a few execution squads and a significant number of guards in the camp.
In frantic longing, our eyes penetrated through the mesh of the bars. Would the execution squads act according to Himmler's orders? The answer came silently, but abruptly and redemptively: the white flag went up from the main guardhouse early on April 29, 1945. The pincers of the American and French forces were about to close around large areas of Bavaria, Dachau and Munich were encircled. The noise of battle grew ever more intense. Bullets whistled over the camp roofs. We listened in tremendous tension, still disturbed by the lurking fear that an unforeseen event could destroy the improbability of our near happiness. Then at last - an unforgettable moment - it remains spellbound in the rigid number of words - it was two minutes past half past five in the evening - a small American battle wagon races through the barred gate onto the roll call square. Language cannot describe the scream that rang out over the dying breath of the roofs of Dachau
Alfons Gorbach had to endure a great deal of suffering during his five and a half years in prison and concentration camp detention, 102 days of which were spent in solitary confinement. In July 1945, he returned to Wörschach in Ennstal, where he reunited with his wife and daughter Alfonsa. After the war, Alfons Gorbach advocated reconciliation with the politically blameless former National Socialists, the fellow travelers and the "less incriminated", despite the hardships he had suffered in the concentration camps. He also repeatedly found courageous words for the soldiers of the Second World War and demanded recognition of their sacrifices.
Shortly after his return, he became politically active in the ÖVP - against the wishes of his wife - and became a member of the National Council, later Styrian state party chairman and federal party chairman and finally Federal Chancellor of the Republic of Austria from 1961 to 1964. He is also a member of the ÖVP-Kameradschaft der politisch Verfolgten und Bekenner für Österreich. He died in Graz at the age of 73 and was laid to rest at the cemetery in Wörschach.
Places
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Residence:
Citations
Krause, Peter/Reinelt, Herbert/Schmitt, Helmut (2020): Farbe tragen, Farbe bekennen. Katholische Korporierte in Widerstand und Verfolgung. Teil 2. Kuhl, Manfred (ÖVfStG, Wien) S: 95-97.
Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstands (DÖW)
