Civil servant

Karl Gustav Christian

Karl Gustav Christian was born in Vienna as the illegitimate son of the maid Augustine Christian. After five years of elementary school and three years of secondary school, he completed an apprenticeship as a sign painter.

However, he did not work in the profession he had learned, but joined the Austrian army in 1931. Initially, he was obviously taken with the rise of National Socialism, especially as he joined the NSDAP in 1932, but left the party a year later in 1933. In 1935, he transferred from the army to the criminal investigation department in Vienna and joined the Vaterländische Front in 1936.

Shortly before the occupation of Austria by the German Wehrmacht, Karl Christian married Anna Lehner and became a father. On March 12, 1938, Karl Christian witnesses the demise of a free and independent Austria. He is then transferred to the German criminal investigation department. He briefly reappears as a candidate for the NSDAP, but refuses to pay his membership fees and is rejected for lack of interest. It is no longer possible to ascertain whether this membership application was due to official or family pressure.

With the occupation of the Czech Republic by the German Wehrmacht in March 1939, Karl Christian was seconded to the 'Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia'. There he met members of the Czech resistance. From 1940, he provided them and Jewish friends who had to flee from Vienna to Paris or London after 1938 with information. He also listens to foreign radio stations, so-called 'enemy stations', and spreads the information he hears there.

While he is working in the 'Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia', his wife has an affair with a soldier. After learning of his activities and not wanting to be found guilty, she anonymously reports him to the Gestapo for 'suspicion of high treason, interception of enemy broadcasts and dissemination of such messages, favoring the enemy, racial defilement and dangerous threats'.

On July 15, 1941, Karl Christian is arrested by a Gestapo special commando in Brno and held in custody for five days. He was then released for the time being.

Another arrest on the same charges took place in Vienna on November 28, 1941. This time, his wife had not reported him anonymously. He was held for six months in the Rossauer Lände police prison and the Vienna VII SS and police prison. The investigations against Karl Christian were then dropped due to lack of evidence. He was released from prison on May 26, 1942 and on January 7, 1943 the proceedings against him were finally dropped. His wife then leaves the marital home, leaving behind their child, who is later taken into care. He then returned to work for the police.

After Karl Christian experienced the liberation of Austria in Vienna in April and May 1945, he immediately filed for divorce and joined the ÖVP-Kameradschaft der politisch Verfolgten und Bekenner für Österreich