Medizinalrat Dr. Norbert Klech

Norbert Klech was born the youngest of three children to a married couple of teachers. After graduating from the Humanist Grammar School in Kandlgasse in the 7th district in 1934, he enrolled at the University of Vienna in the winter semester of 1934/35 to study medicine. During this time, he joins the Franco-Bavaria student fraternity.

As a Catholic student, he is strictly opposed to National Socialism and demonstrates this publicly. When the five medical students Norbert Klech and Friedrich Pakesch, 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 about their decidedly anti-regime behaviour. They were already being 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 were causing a public nuisance with their obstinate behavior. 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 displeasure at such new introductions by making hand gestures. [...] In fact, the university students Muschl, Pakesch, Ruff, Rene Grundmann, who behaved in the manner indicated, were sitting in 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.

In September 1940, he successfully completed his medical studies. After working briefly at Lainz Hospital, he was transferred to the municipal hospital in Pirmasens in the summer of 1941. Throughout the war, he was very fortunate that he was not drafted into the Wehrmacht despite being fully fit, but was able to remain in Pirmasens as a doctor, where he eventually married and started a family.

In the summer of 1946, the young family returned to Vienna, where Norbert Klech successfully completed his training as a specialist in internal medicine at Lainz Hospital and began working as a doctor.