Dr. Karl Biack

Born in Tulln, Karl Biack attended grammar school at Melk Abbey, where he graduated in 1921.

At the suggestion of his history professor, Father Ansgar Zimmermann OSB, he and his fellow pupils founded the Nibelungia Melk secondary school fraternity in 1919. In the winter semester of 1919/20, together with Leopold Figl, his brother Hermann Biack and other pupils from St. Pölten, he also founded Comagena Ferialis in Tulln a. d. Donau, from which the Comagena Tulln secondary school fraternity emerged in 1933. On the basis of a vow made by his mother, Karl Biack is to become a priest. He therefore entered Melk Abbey, where he was given the religious name Norbert and completed his novitiate year. He then began studying theology in Salzburg and continued in Innsbruck. He took simple vows in 1922 and perpetual vows in 1925. He then realized that he did not feel called to the priesthood after all and was able to leave the order by decree of the Sacra Congregatio de Religiosis (today: Congregation for Religious), Rome, on 12.1.1926. Returning to lay life, he then studied law at the University of Vienna from 1926.

Norica accepted him in 1927. In addition to his studies, he worked in the field service of the insurance company of the Austrian provinces and as a temporary driver for a small bus company in Tulln, owned by his future father-in-law, Frhr. von Siber. He also met his wife there.

After completing his studies in 1930 with a doctorate, Biack worked as a trainee lawyer at the Tulln District Court from 13.8.1930 to 12.4.1931, at the Vienna Regional Court for Civil Matters from 13.4.1931 to 14.7.1931 and at the Vienna Regional Court for Criminal Matters II from 15.7.1931 to 20.1.1934. On January 22, 1934, he was assigned to the Federal Police Directorate in Salzburg as an aspirant to the higher administrative service, on April 1, 1935 he was taken on as a civil servant candidate and on December 22, 1935 he was appointed police commissioner. Karl Biack and Edeltraud Freiin von Siber marry on 29.6.1936 in Kritzendorf, Lower Austria.

On 3.1.1938, Karl Biack is assigned to the Graz Police Directorate for training, as he is to take up the post of central inspector in Salzburg.

After the Anschluss, Karl Biack is briefly detained in Graz, from which his wife is able to get him out. He returned to his post in Salzburg, where he was dismissed as "politically unreliable" and retired on January 31, 1939 on the basis of the "Ordinance on the Reorganization of the Austrian Civil Service". After his attempts to reverse this forced retirement were unsuccessful, he began studying medicine at the University of Vienna in January 1940, following his actual vocation. As he did not join any Nazi party organization, he was refused admission to examinations. Karl Biack tried to continue his studies at the University of Innsbruck and enrolled there in 1942, but was unable to complete his studies.

Due to the lack of qualified civil servants, Karl Biack was reactivated and appointed head of the economic office of the town of Traunstein (Bavaria) in February 1943. The family remained in Salzburg-Parsch. In their apartment, Karl and Trude Biack listen to German-language broadcasts from Radio Beromünster (Switzerland) and the BBC (London) alone or with their friends. The "listening circle" is denounced. Karl Biack is arrested at his workplace in Traunstein on March 21, 1944 and his wife is arrested by the Gestapo in Salzburg on March 22, 1944 when she asks where her husband has gone. Edeltraud Biack is only allowed to telephone her mother in Kritzendorf, Lower Austria, to ask her to take care of the children (Karl Heinz 5 1/2 years old, Eleonore 2 years old).

Two days after the assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler, the 1st Senate of the People's Court, chaired by Dr. Roland Freisler, sentences Karl Biack and Franz Seewald on 22.7.1944 in the jury courtroom of the Salzburg Regional Court for "preparation for high treason" in accordance with Art. § § 80, 83 RStGB to death. No appeal against this verdict is permitted, so a petition against the verdict remains unsuccessful.

The reasons for the verdict state, among other things: Franz Seewald and Karl Biack "have thus severely attacked our trust and our strength to fight manfully for our freedom and have thereby made themselves propagandists of subversion for our enemies of war. They are forever dishonorable and will be punished with death." Karl Biack was transferred from Salzburg prison to Munich-Stadelheim prison on September 11, 1944 and executed by guillotine on November 7, 1944.

His farewell letter to his wife Trude - a declaration of love for her and their two children - shows that Biack had not expected the death sentence to be carried out. On the morning of the execution day, he learns that the execution will take place in a few hours. Trude Biack is sentenced to two years in prison at the same trial and imprisoned in Laufen an der Salzach. As the prison in Laufen was quarantined by the US Army after liberation due to tuberculosis, Trude Biack was not released until the end of July 1945. Until then, her daughter Eleonore lived with her maternal grandparents in Kritzendorf and her son Karl Heinz with his father's siblings in Tulln. It was not until August 1945 that Trude Biack was able to reunite with her two children.

After the end of the Nazi terror, Karl Biack's body was transferred from Stadelheim to Tulln and reburied in the family grave on April 10, 1948. Trude Biack dies at the age of 91 on August 21, 2001 in Salzburg.