Dr. Franz Spath

After graduating from high school in 1917, Franz Spath enlists at the Il. Staatsgymnasium in Graz as a one-year volunteer for military service. After the First World War, he began studying medicine in Graz, graduating with a doctorate in 1922. In the winter semester of 1918/19, he became active in the Winfridia student fraternity in Graz. After completing his doctorate, he worked as a trainee at several hospitals in Graz until his habilitation in surgery. In 1934, he worked as an assistant physician at the University Hospital in Graz and was appointed primary physician of the Second Surgical Department at the Provincial Hospital in Graz, receiving the title of associate professor in 1937.

After the Anschluss, he was dismissed from his position as primary physician and supplent of the University Hospital for Surgery. His opposition to National Socialism is well known in student circles in Graz, as on March 11, 1938, he called on his brothers to persevere in the difficult times ahead. One day later, the Winfridia building was already occupied by the Nazis. Franz Spath himself is arrested in the night of March 12/13, 1938. National Socialist-minded brothers ("non-Catholic" Winfridians) were probably also involved in this. Due to the intervention of his (Reich-German) wife Dr. Edith Wielot, he is arrested and has to do military service during the Sudeten crisis (in September) 1938. On August 26, 1939, he was drafted into the German Wehrmacht and found various assignments as a surgeon at the front in France, Norway and Jutland until he was taken prisoner by the British, from which he was released on November 25, 1945.